VAT deferral

As part of the Government’s package of support for businesses, the Chancellor announced that VAT payments can be deferred for 3 months until 30 June 2020. This is open to all VAT registered businesses in the UK and is an automatic offer with no applications required to access this support. Businesses will have until the end of the 2020/21 tax year to pay any liabilities that have accumulated during the deferral period.

We wanted to alert your attention to the procedure if you currently pay your VAT via direct debit. 

If you pay by Direct Debit you should cancel this with your bank. You should do so in sufficient time so that HMRC does not attempt to automatically collect on receipt of their VAT return.

Should you wish, you can continue to make payments as normal during the deferral period. HMRC will also continue to pay repayment claims as normal. You must continue to submit VAT returns as normal.

If you wish to opt into the VAT deferral scheme, you can do this by:

1. Signing in to your VAT online account via the HMRC government gateway 
2. Following the ‘View your VAT account’ link under Making Tax Digital for VAT
3. Clicking on the ‘Payments and Repayments’ link
4. Cancelling the direct debit.

VAT deferral

It is also recommended that you contact the bank to confirm the direct debit is cancelled to ensure that payment is not taken. In due course, you will need to set the DD up again. Your agent is unable to do this for you.

You should continue to file your VAT returns by the usual due date. Only payment is deferred.

Contact Julia Gallagher to discuss these changes or speak with your usual Curo contact.

Call us on 01527 558539 or [email protected]