shield
Immediate Protection
We contact HMRC immediately to signal that professional advisors are involved. This often pauses enforcement action while we formulate a plan.
Don't let PAYE, VAT, or Corporation Tax debts close your business. Our specialist advisors negotiate directly with HMRC to secure your future.
HMRC has significant resources and is relentless when pursuing businesses with tax arrears. Unlike other creditors, they can enact wide-ranging penalties without a court order, from seizing assets to issuing a Winding Up Petition.
If you have received a warning letter, a Notice of Enforcement (the formal warning before HMRC takes control of goods, still called distraint in Northern Ireland), or a threat of liquidation, you must act now. Ignoring the problem will likely result in the closure of your company and potential personal liability for you as a Director.
Stop HMRC Action
We provide the buffer between you and the tax office.
We contact HMRC immediately to signal that professional advisors are involved. This often pauses enforcement action while we formulate a plan.
We use our knowledge of HMRC internal guidelines to negotiate affordable monthly repayment plans (typically 6-12 months) that keep your cash flow healthy.
We understand it can be embarrassing to seek help. Our service is discreet, confidential, and focused solely on resolving the debt, not judging how it happened.
Each tax stream has a different enforcement pathway. We negotiate all of them daily.
PAYE (Pay As You Earn) arrears are among the fastest-escalating debts HMRC pursues, because they involve money legally held on trust for employees' tax and National Insurance. HMRC's PAYE Real Time Information system flags underpayments within days of the monthly or quarterly deadline, and repeat late payments trigger automatic penalty escalation. We regularly negotiate Time to Pay arrangements for PAYE arrears spanning 6 to 12 months, occasionally longer where cash-flow evidence supports it. The key is approaching HMRC's Debt Management team before they escalate to enforcement — once a case moves to Field Force or Enforcement & Insolvency, the conversation becomes significantly harder.
VAT arrears accrue late payment interest from the day after the payment was due. For VAT periods starting on or after 1 January 2023, HMRC replaced the old default surcharge with a points-based system. Each late VAT return earns a penalty point, and once you reach the threshold for your filing frequency (2 points for annual, 4 for quarterly and 5 for monthly returns) HMRC charges a £200 penalty, plus a further £200 for every late return while you remain at the threshold. Paying late is penalised separately: there is no late payment penalty if you pay within 15 days, then 3% of what was unpaid at day 15, a further 3% of what is still unpaid at day 30, and from day 31 a second penalty accruing daily at 10% a year. Agreeing a Time to Pay arrangement can mean lower, or no, late payment penalties.
HMRC treats VAT with particular rigour because, like PAYE, it is money collected from customers on behalf of the Exchequer. We help businesses negotiate VAT Time to Pay arrangements, arrange VAT deferrals where cash flow is genuinely distressed, and where appropriate restructure the debt into a Company Voluntary Arrangement. In 2025 HMRC issued a record volume of winding up petitions against VAT-arrears companies — acting before the 21-day Statutory Demand window closes is critical.
Corporation Tax arrears often arise when a previously profitable company hits a cash-flow shock and the annual CT bill collides with a bad quarter. Unlike PAYE and VAT, Corporation Tax isn't held on trust, which gives us more room to negotiate. Time to Pay arrangements of 12 to 24 months are achievable in the right circumstances, particularly where we can present forward-looking cash-flow forecasts and evidence of underlying business viability. We also advise on Loss Relief claims that can legitimately reduce the CT liability before we begin negotiating the remainder.
Construction firms face the unique pressure of CIS deductions on top of PAYE and VAT. A single missed CIS return blocks gross-payment status, which then cascades into subcontractor cash-flow problems. We work with construction directors to regularise CIS filings, negotiate catch-up deductions, and protect gross-payment status where it still exists. See our dedicated construction insolvency advice page for industry-specific guidance.
Director personal tax arrears and Section 455 charges on overdrawn Director's Loan Accounts frequently surface during HMRC enquiries into a company in difficulty. These are personal liabilities that survive insolvency, which is why we assess them at the same time as the company debt. See our director liabilities page for the full picture.
Direct Recovery of Debt (DRD) is not new: HMRC held the power well before 2026, but it resumed using it and has relied on it far more since April 2026. DRD allows HMRC to recover debts over £1,000 directly from a taxpayer's bank and building society accounts — including ISAs — without a court order, subject to a minimum £5,000 buffer being left in the account. This significantly changes the risk calculus for any director sitting on unpaid PAYE, VAT, or Corporation Tax. HMRC must issue multiple warnings first, and safeguards exist, but the direction of travel is unmistakable: enforcement is faster, more automated, and harder to delay.
HMRC is also making increasing use of data matching — cross-referencing bank data, Land Registry, Companies House, and third-party platforms to identify undeclared income and hidden assets. For directors, this means that informal "wait and see" approaches to arrears carry materially more downside than they did even two years ago.
The good news: HMRC has also expanded its self-service Time to Pay thresholds, and experienced advisors can still negotiate bespoke arrangements well beyond the automated caps. See our dedicated HMRC Time to Pay 2026 guide for a step-by-step breakdown of how TTP works and what's changed this year.
There is no magic formula for dealing with tax debt. Each business is unique. We promise to:
