Reply to: Paying Corporation Tax through Barclays

[kaiser78]

-If you call barclays at around 2pm, you will get the UK call centre instead.
-You can request barclays to increase your limit

Upgrade to Barclays Premier Banking - dedicated UK based contact and direct lines to school leavers, I mean relationship managers

[knight007]

-If you call barclays at around 2pm, you will get the UK call centre instead.
-You can request barclays to increase your limit

[darrenb]

I just had to jump through a couple of hoops as my Corporation Tax was greater than the £20k limit used by Barclays on their "Make a Payment" option.

Yeah, if you have to pay more than 500k in tax, the process is even trickier. Speaking from bitter personal experience of course.

Any ladies on the forum by the way?

[northernladuk]

A friend's accountant suggested setting up a West Indies branch to work around that problem - you're paying more than Google aren't you
But more seriously it's better to keep ca 80% of the money in the LTd than to spend it on stupid expenses...

Great point! So often people want to buy x and y from the company forgetting a majority of it comes out of their pocket in the end.

[yasockie]

If you are paying more than £20k Corp Tax I would find a better accountant!

A friend's accountant suggested setting up a West Indies branch to work around that problem - you're paying more than Google aren't you
But more seriously it's better to keep ca 80% of the money in the LTd than to spend it on stupid expenses...

[SueEllen]

Can't you send multiple payments under £20k to the sum of the overall amount ?

That's what normal people do to get around banks' arbitrary limits on faster payment transfers.

Alternatively you can actually pay online through the HMRC website using a business debit card if your bank is stupid, like mine has been in the past, and blacks out HMRC account numbers so you don't know if you are paying to the correct HMRC account.

I should add they also prevented you from setting up payments to HMRC yourself and default to the blacked out numbers if you attempted to do this.

[kaiser78]

I just had to jump through a couple of hoops as my Corporation Tax was greater than the £20k limit used by Barclays on their "Make a Payment" option. If you're trying to make a payment > £20k, don't select the account name (to whom you're paying) from the automatic list that comes up while you're entering the name, sort code or account number.

Can't you send multiple payments under £20k to the sum of the overall amount ?

Walk into bank branch and make CHAPs transfer.

You have to pay to make a CHAPS transfer - online transfer is no charge.

[centurian]

Walk into bank branch and make CHAPs transfer.

I think any more than 3 payments - and I would have done that. It was easier (and cheaper) to make the payment over 3 days than haul myself down to the branch with passport etc.

[AtW]

Walk into bank branch and make CHAPs transfer.

Or just ask Darren to pay your tax...

[centurian]

Yep this was my backup option, but I'm not as confident in HMRC's systems as you sound

Nor was I to begin with, so I

a) Checked with them before I started that multiple payments would be fine
b) Called them a few days after the last payment to confirm they had received all the payments and had been allocated to the correct corp tax year.

[Sockpuppet]

This is why I love my cheque book

Pay it over the counter at a bank and it counts as an "electronic" payment.

[d000hg]

If you are paying more than £20k Corp Tax I would find a better accountant!

I dunno, I think he just wanted to tell us how much he'd earned

[BolshieBastard]

I just had to jump through a couple of hoops as my Corporation Tax was greater than the £20k limit used by Barclays on their "Make a Payment" option. If you're trying to make a payment > £20k, don't select the account name (to whom you're paying) from the automatic list that comes up while you're entering the name, sort code or account number.

For example, while typing in Payee name of "HMRC", a list pops up with HMRC Corp. Tax etc etc but you need to ignore those and just type in the name yourself.

You have to go through all boxes and enter all details manually, then you'll be allowed to make a payment up to £50k.

I called telephone banking and the Indians weren't helpful (they just cut me off ) but on my second attempt I was lucky to get a lovely sounding lady Gem who told me what I needed to do.

Just thought I'd post this in case someone else gets stuck!

Why is any sane contractor using barcrap for their banking!?

They royally screw contractors at every opportunity. No way those shysters are getting any of my business.

[ChimpMaster]

You can still earn a lot and pay less tax

Yes I have thought about skipping on VAT payments but the jail time just isn't worth it
Seriously though my costs are quite low and I don't push the boundary too much on what I claim - just the usual mileage, food etc (< 2 years). I'll probably buy a new laptop soon so that'll be the biggest expense in a while.

My bank had an ever lower daily limit, so I just made 3 separate payments over 3 days.

Just use the same reference number for each payment and HMRC's system allocates them all fine - although I did ensure that each payment was for a slightly different amount so that if one payment went missing, I could work out which one it was.

Yep this was my backup option, but I'm not as confident in HMRC's systems as you sound

[centurian]

My bank had an ever lower daily limit, so I just made 3 separate payments over 3 days.

Just use the same reference number for each payment and HMRC's system allocates them all fine - although I did ensure that each payment was for a slightly different amount so that if one payment went missing, I could work out which one it was.