As businesses and individuals move increasingly towards paying their taxes online, they should be aware that some banks impose financial limits, which may mean forward planning is needed.
HMRC’s guidance on how tax can be paid does not reflect these constraints.
A daily online banking limit of £10,000 seems common and many banks will charge for CHAPs payments.
The ICAEW Tax Faculty and the Chartered Institute of Taxation have raised this with HMRC, which has in turn advised taxpayers to raise it with their banks.
The £10,000 limit applies to the ‘faster payments’ service offered by some banks. These are set up in the same way as other electronic payments but are received on the same day provided the bank account at the receiving bank is enabled to accept faster payments.
HMRC are currently not able to receive these types of payments.
However, they are in the process of moving their business to a new banking supplier and following this migration the opportunity for using the faster payments service will be reviewed.