Making your monthly PAYE payments and VAT payments by Direct Debit (DD) can help ease your administrative burden and ensure that you do not miss a payment which could incur interest in the case of VAT also incur penalty points.
You may already have a personal Government Gateway which is completely different that the gateway for your business.
The Business Tax account is online portal provided by HMRC which allows businesses to view and manage their business taxes such as VAT, PAYE and Corporation Tax and many other business taxes beside. You can find out more the Business Tax Account here.
If you have not already set up your Business Tax Account, here is a step by step guide on how to set it up.
1. Have the following information handy
- If you already have a Government Gateway ID great, if not you will create one during the set up process
- Your business details such as your 10-digit Unique Tax Reference (UTR) if you are a sole trader or a partnership or limited company
- Your National Insurance number if you are a sole trader
- For a company, the company registration number
- VAT number if applicable
- PAYE reference number and Accounts Office reference numbers
(If you do not have any or all of this information please contact us and we will help fill in any blanks)
2. Once you have all this information to hand, please visit the HMRC website to create your Business Tax (Government Gateway) Account
- If you do not already have a Government Gateway account, click on “Create sign in details”, insert your business email address and you will receive a confirmation code by email
- Enter the code and create a password and a recovery word which you should save for you records
- You will then be provided to a Government Gateway ID, please make sure you save this
3. Register for HMRC online Services
- Once logged in you can select the appropriate tax heads such as Self-Assessment if you are a sole trader, Corporation Tax if your business is a company and VAT and PAYE if applicable
- Follow the on-screen instructions to register your business for the tax head required
- Depending on the tax selected, HMRC may send an activation code by posy which can take up to 7 working days
4. Activate your Gateway account
- Once the activation code has been received, log in to your business’s HMRC account using your Government Gateway user ID and password
- Enter the activation code to complete the set up
- You should now have access to your Business Tax account
5 . Add further taxes
- If you require further taxes to be added you can add them through the Business Tax account by selecting the tax head from the menu and following the registration process
- This handy HMRC video will guide you through adding the various tax heads to your business tax account:
6. Manage your Business Tax Account
- Once everything has been set up, you can manage and view your taxes, set up DDs etc through the HMRC online portal
You should ensure that you keep your Business Tax account details safe as you will need these details to access your Business Tax account.
If you require any assistance in setting up your HMRC Business Tax Account please no not hesitate to contact us and one of the team will be happy to assist.
