Friday, January 05, 2018

Statutory interest in MVLs – the continuing saga!

While HMRC continue to insist on being paid statutory interest on pre-appointment CT, even if it is paid prior to the normal due date, the situation has recently taken a farcical turn.

A client has informed us that they duly paid the pre-appointment CT and statutory interest to the HMRC office responsible for dealing with the company’s CT, only to receive back a cheque for the statutory interest.

The IP then received a letter from the MVL team in Edinburgh indicating that they would not provide clearance until the IP had paid the outstanding statutory interest!

The IP managed to speak to the MVL team and they were advised that the offices responsible for CT in HMRC do not understand and are unable to deal with statutory interest. Instead, the statutory interest must be sent separately to the MVL team.

This is only one example and we have not seen any formal advice from HMRC on the topic, but since the MVL team will no doubt want statutory interest to the date of payment, even if payment was delayed as a result of another department within HMRC not being able to process the payment, you may have to make any payment for statutory interest direct to the MVL team in Edinburgh and not include it in the normal CT payment.