American Express in the UK

Sandtree

Alex9384 said:

It's pretty pathetic that you can't pay tax or insurance with Amex.

You cannot pay your taxes with any personal credit card because they can no longer charge you the 0.5% credit card fee so its money out of HMRCs pocket.

jbrassy

This website is a pretty good guide to who accepts Amex:
https://www.whoacceptsamex.co.uk/

Personally I manage to do 90%+ of my spending on Amex. 

And this statement is pretty ridiculous:

Alex9384 said:

It's pretty pathetic that you can't pay tax or insurance with Amex.
It's not like they are selling you products that have tight margins so they can't afford it. Taxes are just leeching your money and insurance companies charge you pretty much whatever they wish so.. not accepting Amex is really ridiculous.

Firstly, insurance companies do not charge "pretty much whatever they wish to", they base it on their perceived risk that you pose. In any case, I managed to pay for my Admiral home insurance with Amex. If using Amex is really such an issue for you, then switch to a provider which does accept it, or pipe down and use a Mastercard or Visa. Personally, I switch to the insurance company which provides the best value in terms of price and cover, then use whatever payment I can. Ultimately insurance companies are private businesses and it's up to them what payment methods they want to accept.

And if you think that taxes are "leeching your money", you can always move to the Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Gibraltar or any number of tax havens across the globe. Personally, I would rather my council tax money was spent on public services rather than being "leeched" away by Amex interchange fees. It's not like Amex are making tight margins is it?

Alex9384

Sandtree said:

You cannot pay your taxes with any personal credit card because they can no longer charge you the 0.5% credit card fee so its money out of HMRCs pocket.

Hmm, what kind of taxes? I paid my vehicle tax in 2020 with my personal Barclaycard.

funkycredit

Alex9384 said:

Sandtree said:

You cannot pay your taxes with any personal credit card because they can no longer charge you the 0.5% credit card fee so its money out of HMRCs pocket.

Hmm, what kind of taxes? I paid my vehicle tax in 2020 with my personal Barclaycard.

That's not HMRC though  

dr_adidas01

Alex9384 said:

Sandtree said:

You cannot pay your taxes with any personal credit card because they can no longer charge you the 0.5% credit card fee so its money out of HMRCs pocket.

Hmm, what kind of taxes? I paid my vehicle tax in 2020 with my personal Barclaycard.

Usually when you have to fill in a self assessment it works out how much income tax  you owe HMRC. They no longer let you pay it by credit card because they can’t charge you the credit card fee that they have to pay. Of course this could change in the future since were are no longer members of the EU. 

If you have a curve card and pay a monthly or yearly fee for it then of course you can pay by credit card as they use something called Curve fronted which lets you pay your HMRC taxes or other credit cards with a credit card attached to your curve card. 

Alex9384

funkycredit said:

That's not HMRC though  

I was talking about taxes in general, did not mention HMRC specifically   Whether it's DVLA or local councils or HMRC, it's still pathetic. It's not like they have margins on a product they are selling you. They literally just take your money, yet they "can't afford" to accept Amex because of some 1% higher processing fee than other CC?

HMRC just takes this nonsense to the next level by not allowing any CC at all.

Sandtree

Alex9384 said:

funkycredit said:

That's not HMRC though  

HMRC just takes this nonsense to the next level by not allowing any CC at all.

They do accept credit cards, business credit cards with an appropriate fee. Personal cards they dont as the government made it illegal to charge a fee.

0.5% isnt big until you are taking billions at which point thats many cancelled operations

msallen

Alex9384 said:

funkycredit said:

That's not HMRC though  

I was talking about taxes in general, did not mention HMRC specifically   Whether it's DVLA or local councils or HMRC, it's still pathetic. It's not like they have margins on a product they are selling you. They literally just take your money, yet they "can't afford" to accept Amex because of some 1% higher processing fee than other CC?

HMRC just takes this nonsense to the next level by not allowing any CC at all.

If 1% of your tax is such an irrelevant amount then I assume you'd be happy for all your taxes to up by 1% - obviously with the added benefit of being allowed to pay by credit card.
... or are you just talking drivel?

MDMD

I buy all my supermarket shopping using discounted gift cards on a website that I get via work.

Unfortunately they don’t take Amex but I do get a 4% or 5% discount so works out better value to use my RBS Reward MasterCard for an extra 0.25% instead. I’ve had all the intro offers from Amex so can’t get any more than the standard rates.

Alex9384

msallen said:

If 1% of your tax is such an irrelevant amount then I assume you'd be happy for all your taxes to up by 1% - obviously with the added benefit of being allowed to pay by credit card.
... or are you just talking drivel?

Oh, poor government. They need brave knights to defend their honour on the internet...
Just in case you didn't know, it's MY money that govs want from me. They should be happy that they actually get any money from me, don't you think? They should allow all forms of payments, perhaps even in bitcoin (since they are happy to grab your capital gain tax even for that).