COM90020 - Payments: processing payments: the payment record

The majority of Company Tax payments are made electronically, but where a payment is received in GBP, it is processed in accordance with the instructions in the Debt Management Manual. See COM90030 for guidance when a payment is received in any other HMRC Office.

Function VPPD (View Payment and Posting Details) provides all the information you need about payments and other accounting postings that appear on a COTAX record. It is essential that you review the payment position before taking any pursuit action.

The payments displayed on function VPPD (View Payment and Posting Details) screen D with a posting type of ‘PYT’ are:

  • bank lodgement payments
  • Bank Giro payments
  • Girobank payments
  • Bacs payments
  • CHAPS payments or payment made by Faster Payment (FP) methods
  • set-offs made by the CT responsible office

COTAX also processes posting types ‘RFR’, ‘RTO’, ‘LOS’ and ‘ACT’ as payments so it can calculate credit interest, debit interest, late payment interest and repayment interest. You will see ‘ACT’ postings only on CT Pay and File Accounting Periods (APs).

The payment reference number a company should use to make a payment electronically is the one provided:

  • on the payslip attached to the payment application
  • from the Your Tax Account Accounting Period overview screen

COTAX applies the automatic payment allocation rules to all payments unless a duty type other than ‘A’ is entered when the payment is made. The duty type will be either 'A' for Assessment or 'P' for Penalty.

The automatic payment allocation rules are shown below:

Circumstances
 Allocation of payment
The AP carries a charge posting for tax

To outstanding collectible duty types in the following order

  • Tax
  • Penalty
  • Interest

Any unallocated amount, will be allocated to tax to be dealt with as an overpayment
The AP contains a charge but not for tax

To outstanding collectible duty types in the following order

  • Penalty
  • Interest

Any unallocated amount, will be allocated to tax to await a charge

Either

  • there is no AP to match the payment
  • the company has not specified an AP
  • there is no charge on an AP with a status of ‘Exempt’ or ‘Superseded’

 The payment is allocated to the company’s Suspense record ‘PA’
There is no record for the UTR on the computer
 The payment is allocated to OAS

If you are contacted by telephone about paying by Bacs or CHAPS, refer the call to GBP.

SAFE handles payments for:

  • all APs ending before 1 October 1993
  • S419 Income and Corporation Taxes Act (ICTA) 1988 and S747 charges for APs ending on or before 30 June 1999
  • common non-COTAX assessment types listed at COM23133

IRIS handles payments for overpayments allocated to OAS.

See:

  • COM90021 for a list of functions to use in particular situations
  • COM90022 for legislation applying to this subject