Time to Pay arrangements drop again

THERE HAS BEEN a dramatic drop in the number of Time to Pay arrangements in the second quarter of 2011.

HM Revenue & Customs figures showed that 4,700 arrangements - which allow businesses extra time to pay tax bills - were made in April this year, 6,600 in May and 4,190 in June. This is in comparison with over 15,000 in January, 10,900 in February and 6,950 in March. The figures are also a huge drop year-on-year, with an average of around 10,000 requests granted a month at the same time last year, which itself was a drop on the first quarter of 2010 and the whole of 2009.

The figures also showed a drop in overall requests, with demand in the second quarter of 2011 falling by 43% on the second quarter of 2010. However, the numbers of requests refused increased, with just 2,970 refusals in Q2 of 2011 - a refusal rate of 14% - compared with 2,250 in the same period in 2010, a refusal rate of 6.5%.

A HMRC spokesman said that this increase in requests refused could be put down to repeat requests from a single business, a belief from HMRC that some companies are not viable and the taxman's refusal to offer TTP arrangements to companies that pay dividends. The decrease in requests overall might be attributable to the changing economic environment, he added.

These are the last figures that HMRC will be publishing, it announced earlier in the year.