EM8301 - Companies: Quarterly Instalment Payments: General

SI 98 No.3175

The obligation to make instalment payments only applies to large and very large companies.

Large and very large companies are defined in regulation 3.

As the amount which a company was required to pay in each instalment for an accounting period cannot be established until its return for the period has been submitted, and then becomes final, the company can only make instalment payments based on its best estimate of the amount which it believes will be due. There is a specific interest regime for tax overpaid or underpaid during the instalment payment period. In most cases, the only consequence of getting payments wrong or making them late will be an interest charge.

You should not make enquiries about a company's instalment payments solely because the amounts paid were not those required to be paid under the regulations.

Guidance for companies and their advisers on HMRC’s use of the information and penalty powers in the Quarterly Instalment Payment Regulations was published on June 1999 in Press Release 110/99 and in Tax Bulletin 42 (August 1999). Further guidance is published on the HMRC Internet Site under the Corporation Tax area.