Deloitte outlines impact of Time To Pay

Date: 7th October 2009

The government's Time To Pay scheme has been broadly useful to the self-employed, Deloitte suggested today (October 7th).

Bill Dodwell, head of the professional services firm's tax policy group, indicated that sole traders in the IT sector had benefitted from the reforms.

Time To Pay allows businesses struggling in the credit crunch and recession to renegotiate their tax payment schedules with HM Revenue & Customs representatives.

The expert highlighted the fact many self-employed IT professionals' tax obligations were "lumpy", as they tend to work intermittently rather than regularly.

In turn, this factor can increase the usefulness of participation in the Time To Pay scheme.

"There are quite a few small businesses and contractors and they are finding delays in themselves getting paid, or perhaps they're not getting work at all," Mr Dodwell added.

"Clearly they're going to have a lot of difficulty paying their tax bills."
HMRC recently released official data for the time to pay scheme, showing that the total value of arrangements struck under the programme came to £291 million.

A total of 210,000 individual arrangements have been made, including 17,340 in the IT and Telecoms sectors.

These agreements covered the period from the scheme's launch in November 2008 to the end of September 2009.