Borrowing money -help please-

Hello everyone! Happy New Year!

I’m just looking for some money advice. I’m self employed and having to pay for an unexpectedly high tax bill at the end of January.

I currently only have the finances to pay half! Annoyingly I know that in the next tax year I’ll get most of this money back as I have not earned much this year.

Does the HMRC ever let you do a pay monthly option?

Also how manageable is a credit card as i’ve never had one of these before.

Have you spoken to the HMRC?

They will usually let you spread the payments out if the alternative is that you can’t pay it.

the pay monthly/instalments thing still has to be paid by the end of january, so it’s pretty pointless.

when i got stung by those ‘payments to account’ i couldn’t pay it on time so just told them and they charged interest on it but it was hilariously low. think i paid about £2 in interest in the end so that’s probably the better option.

not yet! I’ll do this tomorrow, talk some stuff through.

ah ok, didnt realise it was still before January…

Yeah as @marckee said, talk to them first. If you’re on a low income and they can’t solve your problem then TaxAid are worth talking to:

Credit cards might be manageable but only really if HMRC can’t offer you an interest/penalty-free option.

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You can reduce the payments on account if you’ve earned less in the current year.

Also, if you file your tax return as soon aa you can in April after the end of the year, it will automatically adjust them.

If you make sure you pay the balancing payment you’ll only be charged interest and like Eric said it’s not usually that high, 2.75% Apr at the moment.

Used to deal with this stuff, send me a DM if you want to talk any specifics.

thank you! v.kind