Tax deadline penalty

sweetbutternut

Hi,
Can't find the answer to this anywhere on the HMRC website.
If I pay my tax online on 31st January, will I be liable to a penalty for late payment if the payment takes 3 days to clear to HMRC?

agrinnall

Why would it take 3 days to clear? There is no longer any payment method for personal customers that has a clearing cycle of 3 days. I'm not sure what the options for paying HMRC online are but either Faster Payments or debit card should happen the same day (or by the end of the next if FPS is on a go-slow).

sweetbutternut

Saw this on the HMRC website -
"If you have a debit or credit card from a UK card issuer, you can pay your Self Assessment tax online using the BillPay service provided by Santander Corporate Banking.
If you pay by credit card you will have to pay a transaction fee of 1.4 per cent. HMRC does not accept American Express or Diners Club cards.
A BillPay payment takes three bank working days to reach HMRC. Bank working days are Monday to Friday excluding Bank holidays.
Remember, if you're late sending your return or payment, you may have to pay interest or penalties"

Also does anyone know if I can pay part of the bill by debit card and part by credit card?

chrismac1

Relax. The £100 penalty on 31 Jan is for not having submitted the return. For paying a few days' late there is interest at 4% per year. The first surcharge is for being 30 days late and this is 5% so as long as you pay before that there is no big hit here.

dori2o

Don't worry. HMRC will apply a countback to the payment you make. Each method is slightly different in terms of the number of days it counts back, but the average is 4 days.

So f you send a payment on 31/01 and it reaches HMRC 04/02/2013, it will be deemed as received 31/01/13.

This is only a deemed date of receipt. If you pay too much onto an account, any interest generated will be counted from the date it cleared to HMRC only.

suso

chrismac1 wrote: »

Relax. The £100 penalty on 31 Jan is for not having submitted the return. For paying a few days' late there is interest at 4% per year. The first surcharge is for being 30 days late and this is 5% so as long as you pay before that there is no big hit here.

Corrected the obvious error, but then that will be a phrase that you see on lots of letters relating to your clients returns

late payment interest rate - 3.0 per cent from 29 September 2009

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/interest.htm

agrinnall

I didn't know about BillPay, but it seems a rather dubious arrangement, I'm not sure what Santander are doing with the money for it to take 3 days to arrive (in fact, on their website it says it takes 4 days, although they don't even list HMRC as one of the organisations that can be paid that way).

If you have the money in your account then I'd suggest using Faster Payments through your online banking as described here

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/payinghmrc/selfassessment.htm#7

Tebheag

Hi I use billpay to pay HMRC never had a prob before sometimes only paid a day before deadline ! There should not be any problem paying part by credit card and part by debit card as along as they get there money they dont care.
good luck