VAT time to pay

The VATman has got tougher recently on businesses asking for extra time to pay their VAT bills.

In Jan-Mar 2010 the HMRC rejected 11% of all applications compared to just 5% in Jan-Mar 2009.

However, in our opinion, there were a lot of spurious applications being accepted in 2008/09 without much testing so this is more a reflection of more thorough checking than a change in any rules.  However, if the rejection rate increases further this would be cause for concern.