HMRC urged to scrap credit card fees for settling tax bills

Accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young has called on HMRC to scrap credit card fees on taxpayers’ bills. It follows the Treasury announcement that the government will outlaw surcharging this way by businesses from January next year.

The new rules will also tackle surcharging by local councils and government agencies.

HMRC’s credit card charges for individuals and businesses paying their tax by credit range from 0.4% to 0.6% for personal cards to more than 2.4% for some corporate credit cards. The department collected almost £10m in credit card fees in the 12 months to 31 March 2016.

Roy Maugham tax partner at UHY Hacker Young said: ‘People paying their tax bills on a credit card are likely to be cash-strapped already and hitting people in that situation with an extra surcharge was always a pretty insensitive thing to do.

‘Given the upcoming change in the law HMRC...