Company Voluntary Arrangements ― supporting businesses
Updated 23 October 2025
If you are an insolvency practitioner, this guidance will help you to prepare and submit a proposal for a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) on behalf of your client that HMRC will likely vote in favour of.
You should always send CVA proposals to HMRC’s Voluntary Arrangement Service.
Their contact details are at the end of this guidance. Sending proposals straight to the team will make it quicker for them to understand whether they can support it.
HMRC do not review or provide advice on draft proposals.
When we will support a proposal
We will only vote in favour of a proposal where we think there is a realistic chance that the proposal can be successfully implemented.
Essential conditions for supporting a proposal
We consider CVAs on a case-by-case basis. There are certain conditions that must be met for us to vote to support a proposal.
HMRC is likely to reject a proposal that does not make clear that your client will pay all future debts to HMRC in full and on time. This should be reflected in the statement of income and expenditure in the proposal.
Your client must:
- be honest about their finances in the proposal and understand their responsibility, recognising their obligations under section 6A Insolvency Act 1986
- state in the proposal that they will pay all future debts to HMRC in full and on time
- have up to date tax affairs and have submitted all tax returns — so it is clear how much tax is owed
- have made an optimised and achievable offer (best offer first time) to creditors
What information to include in a proposal
We depend on you to deliver the most appropriate solution and expect you to have undertaken sufficient work with your client so you can confirm to creditors:
- the true position regarding assets and liabilities
- that the open market value of assets is not materially different from the proposal
- that the value of liabilities is not materially different from the proposal
- that the proposal is likely to work
We will also require:
- a detailed business cash flow forecast and a projection for at least the first 12 months of the proposed arrangement
- full reasons for past non-payment of tax and a clear explanation of changes made to enable payment of post approval Crown liabilities as well as CVA contributions
- a clearly defined timeframe for payment of contributions into the arrangement
Where these points are not clear, we may ask you to provide further details, which can include:
- financial information that may have been excluded
- any other information that influences our decision
If we do not receive this information, we may vote to reject the proposal. If we receive the information later, we cannot guarantee to revisit the original decision.
We will also:
- compare our knowledge of the financial position with what is stated in the proposal
- look critically at projected income and expenditure
- require that provision is made for payment of all future post voluntary arrangement liabilities as they fall due
What will cause HMRC to vote against a proposal
It is likely we will vote against a proposal if there’s evidence of:
- your client failing to meet prior voluntary arrangement obligations
- your client or the company’s directors being involved in tax avoidance schemes
- your client having previously paid other creditors while withholding sums due to the Crown
- your client evading statutory liabilities, or past or current association with contrived insolvency, including phoenixism
- the proposal trying to remove HMRC’s potential right of set-off against any HMRC debts
- an inability to pay future ongoing tax liabilities while maintaining a CVA
- requiring the sale of HMRC debt or not providing cash dividends
- a proposal that is not effective to maintain
- unusual and hidden supervisor costs
- terms allowing for early completion of the arrangement without the consent of creditors
- obvious patterns of past behaviour that give rise to significant doubt as to the likelihood of the company maintaining their ongoing liabilities
- any proposal by any member of any organisation that requires debts owed to its members to be paid in full, whether inside or outside of the arrangement or before or after the completion of the arrangement when all other unsecured creditors will become bound to accept a compromise of their debt ― ‘members’ includes any prescribed associates or other creditors specified by the organisation
We expect all preferential debt to be cleared in full before any funds are distributed to non-preferential unsecured creditors. HMRC’s secondary preference should be included and detailed in the estimated outcome statement. We will not support a proposal if this is not the case.
We will not support a proposal unless there’s full and honest financial disclosure.
How to contact us
You should send all CVA proposals to the Voluntary Arrangement Service by email, and must include your client’s:
- company registration number
- VAT registration number
- PAYE reference
You can email proposals to eisc.cva@hmrc.gov.uk.
The subject of the email should state ‘company voluntary arrangement proposal’ and the company name.
If you have an upcoming date for the decision procedure to vote on your client’s proposal, you should also include this in the subject of your email.
You should only post your client’s documents, including the information required, if you cannot send a proposal by email:
Debt Management ― EIS C
HM Revenue and Customs
BX9 1SH
Make sure proposals:
- satisfy the substance and spirit of our acceptance criteria
- are supported by detailed and reliable financial information
- are clear and unambiguous as to terms, roles and obligations
HMRC may not be able to access online portals due to technical security restrictions, so we may ask for documents to be sent to us in other ways. If this cannot be done, this may delay our response or affect our ability to consider your proposal.
Paying HMRC
You can pay by bank transfer.
If you pay by CHAPS (Clearing House Automated Payment System) or Faster Payments, you can submit your payment on the same or next day.
If you pay by Bacs (Bankers Automated Clearing System), allow 3 working days for the payment to reach HMRC.
We recommend you check your bank’s processing times and maximum transaction limits before you pay.
What you need
Make sure you quote your 13-character payment reference number when you pay. This is your 10-digit unique case reference number followed by the 3-letter suffix CVA to show the type of insolvency the dividend refers to, for example 8801234567CVA.
Account details to use if your bank account is in the UK
Use the following details to make a payment if your account is in the UK:
- sort code — 20-20-48
- account number — 30944793
- account name — HMRC NIC Receipts
Account details to use if your bank account is overseas
Use the following details to make a payment if your account is overseas:
- account number (IBAN) — GB49 BARC 2020 4830 9447 93
- Business Identifier Code (BIC) — BARCGB22
- account name — HMRC NIC Receipts