From the 13th of January this year, HMRC will stop accepting personal credit card payments. This follows an EU law change which limits personal credit card surcharges to 0.3%.

HMRC have commented that their cost of processing credit card payments exceeds the 0.3% limit, therefore, continuing to accept credit card payments would mean absorbing the excess costs or passing them back to all taxpayers. HMRC have decided instead to stop accepting personal credit card payments.

The timing is unfortunate, given that the majority of self-assessment taxpayers will be making UK tax payments this month. Taxpayer’s who want to pay by personal credit card should, therefore, make payment before 13th January. HMRC will accept pre-payment of self-assessment tax if the final tax amounts are not yet known.

Payment can still be made by bank transfer, debit card and cheque; further information can be found at HMRC’s website. We understand that HMRC will continue to accept payments from corporate and business credit cards and readers should note that surcharges do still apply to credit card payments.
Please contact your usual US Tax FS advisor should you have any questions.