Newsletter Summer 2019

Paying tax by 31 July

People who complete a Self-assessment tax return and owe more than £1,000 of tax, generally have to make two payments on account of tax due for the 2018/19 year, by 31 January 2019 and 31 July 2019.

Those on account bills are based on the total amount of tax calculated as payable for 2017/18 in the tax return submitted by 31 January 2019. The HMRC computer should send taxpayers demands for those on account payments in good time to allow you to find the money before January and July 2019, but this year it has failed to do this in every case.

If you didn’t see a request on your tax statement to pay an on account amount in January 2019, you may have paid just the balancing payment due for 2017/18 in January. In this case you will either have to pay all of your 2018/19 tax due by 31 January 2020, or make a voluntary payment on account.

There is a risk that a voluntary payment will be automatically repaid by the HMRC computer, as it won’t be expecting it. So it may be easier to deposit all the tax due into a savings account and pay over the entire sum in January 2020.

If your tax statement didn’t include demands for payments on account for 2018/19, you won’t be charged interest for late payment, as long as the full amount of tax due for 2018/19 is paid by 31 January 2020.

If you did pay the correct amount of tax as we advised by 31 January 2019, including payment on account for 2018/19, and your tax statement doesn’t show a demand for 2018/19 tax due by 31 July, we can fix that. We can ask HMRC to added the payment made on account to your record, which will ensure the tax is not repaid.

Please let us know if you receive an unexpected repayment of tax, as it may not be correct