HMRC to stop accepting Post Office and personal credit card payments

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has confirmed that it will no longer accept Post Office payments from 15 December 2017. It has also announced that it will stop accepting personal credit card payments from 13 January 2018.

In short, this means that company directors and self-employed individuals will no longer be able to use their own credit cards to pay their self-assessment tax bills, or pay such bills by visiting their local Post Office.

The change also affects income tax, PAYE, VAT and any other payments to HMRC.

The move in part follows European Union (EU) legislative changes in relation to personal credit card surcharges.

Such surcharges will effectively become against the law from January unless companies opt to ‘swallow’ the surcharge costs themselves – something which HMRC is not prepared to do.

An HMRC spokesperson said: “We will no longer be accepting credit card payments from 13 January as new rules mean that we can no longer pass on what our bank charge for processing a credit card payment.

“It would be unfair to expect other taxpayers to pick up this cost.”

They added: “There are a range of ways for people to pay us depending on the type of tax being paid, including debit cards, Direct Debit, Faster Payment and BACS.”

The new changes only affect personal credit cards, and HMRC has confirmed that it will continue to accept payments from corporate or ‘business-registered’ credit cards.