South: Taxpayers face more charges from HMRC
Cash-strapped taxpayers who need to use their credit card to make tax payments to HMRC will now face an increased surcharge of 1.25%, a rise of a quarter on the previous charge, warns Wilkins Kennedy, the Top 25 accountancy firm.
Wilkins Kennedy says that the full impact of the increased charge, which came into effect at the end of 2009, will be felt over the next fortnight as the critical January 31 tax payment deadline for self-assessment for both businesses and individuals approaches.
The January 31 tax payment is one of the two semi-annual self-assessment tax payments and covers private individuals and sole traders through to the very largest partnerships such as major law firms.
The previous surcharge for credit card payments was 0.9%.
Mathew Hall, head of tax for Wilkins Kennedy, commented: “This jump in credit card charges comes at a particularly tough time for taxpayers as a whole and SMEs in particular.
“Many individuals and smaller businesses who have had to weather the recession will have been running through the cash reserves they need to pay their tax bill – so using credit cards might be their only way of paying.
“It seems highly insensitive, to say the least, that these charges have been increased so substantially at such a critical time.”
Hall added that many smaller businesses were finding it more difficult to obtain short-term funding from their banks, with loan approval processes seemingly more bureaucratic.
