Brett Barton
Brett's recent articles
- Directors Urged To Protect Their Investments
2nd February - Will there be a double dip?
15th September - Is This The Beginning Of The End Of Business Rescue?
16th June
HMRC gets tough!
23rd September 2010 14:24
Over the past few weeks I have spoken to significantly more business owners who have directly felt the effects of HMRC getting tough when it comes to paying tax arrears.
It has been widely reported that HMRC could not continue to act as a bank and allow the arrears of tax revenues to increase and that it had to take a tougher stance on companies meeting their ongoing obligations to the Crown. It is becoming clear from my own recent experiences that instructions have been given to front line staff to reduce the flexibility offered to companies.
It has become common knowledge that if you breach a time to pay agreement, renegotiating new terms was very difficult. Furthermore, if you were in a time to pay agreement and additional arrears were incurred, HMRC would be more likely to instruct a bailiff or to commence winding up proceedings.
A recent case in the media highlights the point. One of Britain’s largest architecture firms Archial were forced into Administration after HMRC refused to agree to a proposal to pay the arrears in monthly installments rather than one lump sum. It is understood that Archial, which employs more than 400 staff, including about 200 architects, owes HMRC about £4m.
The advice to your clients needs to be clear, make sure that the amount due to HMRC does not increase. Remember that HMRC have deep pockets and do not always exercise commercial judgment when deciding whether to wind up a company or not. One of our top tips is to take advice early.
