Thursday, September 6

Taxman Receives A Final Demand

Disgracefully around 130,000 small businesses are still awaiting cheques promised as an incentive (and a very well publicised one at that) for filing PAYE returns online (a great help to the taxman (sorry taxperson).
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To make the point The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has, we are deligted to report, sent the taxperson a final demand. The UKs largest member based business organisation has demanded that Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) honours its obligation to the scheme (sooner rather than later) which pays firms £150 to encourage them to file their returns on line. Something that will become compulsory in 2010.
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HMRC says payments to business owners that complied with the taxpersons incentive will now be delayed until December. We on this blog agree with the statements of outrage from the FSB.

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"It is a very different scenario when HMRC are owed money from small businesses," said a frustrated Bill Knox, FSB Taxation Chairman, a man well known for is forthright comments. "There is little room for a small business owner to tell the taxman, 'actually, it will take about four months to pay you because we’ve just been too busy’.
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"What we are saying (continued Mr Knox) is don’t wave a carrot to small businesses if it’s going to be left in the air for months. The financial incentive may not be a substantial amount to larger businesses but is vital to smaller ones, and waiting over a quarter of a year for it is too long a time."

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In contrast, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (formerly the DTI and indeed it does sound like a department from ''Yes Minister'') has been working hard to penalise business people who fail to pay on time since the introduction of late payment legislation in 1998.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thats outrageous!