HMRC have published a response to their consultation ‘Making Tax Digital: Voluntary pay as you go'.

The original consultation looked at the options for taxpayers to make and manage voluntary payments, as well as how these would be allocated.

The view of respondents was largely that there would be little interest or no significant take-up of the voluntary payments. The view of most was that businesses would be unlikely to make payments earlier than needed, especially where HMRC were not giving any interest on the balances held.

In their response HMRC have confirmed that voluntary pay as you go will be introduced as part of MTD.

In terms of repayment, HMRC have responded as follows:

HMRC also confirmed that partners in a partnership will be able to opt-in to sharing details of suggested voluntary payments with the partnership and they will also ensure that third party payments will be possible, without the need to share any information from the taxpayer’s digital tax account with that third party.

There will be more to come on this area, though HMRC have given no firm indication of whether there will be further consultations or whether they will proceed directly to draft legislation.

Links

Making Tax Digital: Index

HMRC’s consultation documents can be found here