A
client has recently had some success in getting a discount from HMRC in respect
of the early payment of Corporation Tax in an MVL. The client applied the formula in rule 11.13,
which deals with debts payable at a future time, to pay a reduced amount of
Corporation Tax to HMRC since he was paying them in advance of the due date for
payment. You should consider giving it a
try, although I would restrict it only to when you consider the amount of the
discount to be sufficiently large to justify doing so given that you might
encounter some resistance from HMRC to such an approach and have to spend time
and effort arguing with them. It would
certainly be worth sending a covering letter with the payment indicating why
you have paid a lower amount than that due for the outstanding Corporation Tax.
Whilst
there is no guarantee that this will necessarily work, the instructions to the
local tax office to accept the discounted payment from our client came from the
Insolvency Claims Handling Unit in Longbenton.
Of
course, it may be that you have been doing this all the time and we just have
not noticed before, but it is the first we have heard of it and we thought you
should be told.
