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Have you got undeclared Credit Card sales?
The Credit Card Sales Campaign is an opportunity to bring your tax affairs up to date if you’re an individual or business that accepts credit or debit card payments.
Who can do this
This opportunity is for you if:
- you accept card payments for goods or service
- you haven’t declared all your UK tax liabilities
Get the best terms
You need to tell HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) if you either:
- haven’t registered with them
- have failed to declare all your income
This is called a ‘voluntary disclosure’.
What happens if you should disclose but don’t
HMRC has details of all credit and debit card payments to UK businesses. This information is used to identify individuals and businesses that might not have paid what they owe.
Credit Card Sales Campaign Helpline
Telephone: 0300 123 9272
From outside the UK: +44 300 123 9272
Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm
steve@bicknells.net
Ovivo – Dead as a dodo
I guess the moral of this story might be – if it looks too good to be true, it probably is…
Is it a dodo?
The ovivo logo looks like bird resisting the weight of a great rhinoceros. If you have recently signed up for a free subscription to the mobile phone company ovivo, you may be surprised to learn that the company has ceased trading. Their home page now contains a form to get your PAC code but who knows if they will be able to deal with all the requests?
Glimmer of hope
You may be able to get a refund from your debit or credit card if you signed up in the last few days under the Chargeback scheme. There is an article on the Money Saving Expert site including a template for a letter to send your bank. Giffgaff is offering £5 of credit to anyone transferring their number from ovivo, but the deadline for transferring your number is the end of April – and there is no guarantee that ovivo will release the PAC code in time.
For business support and advice contact Alterledger or visit the website alterledger.com.
Related articles
Repay your debts sooner and save money
Order your debts
My advice is straightforward and you will have seen it before, but it is probably one of the easiest ways for individuals and companies to save money. If you have any debts make sure you know which has the highest rate of interest. If you are in a position to repay debt, you should pay off your most expensive loans first. For individuals this is likely to be store cards or credit cards, followed by other unsecured lending to banks in the form of an overdraft.
Even with historically low base rate from the Bank of England, you can pay between 30% and 40% interest a year on store card and credit card purchases.
Maintain minimum payments
For the remainder of your debt, make sure you keep up your minimum payments. Failure to do this may mean additional charges are added to the debt and may affect your credit score.
Check for forgotten accounts
If you have a balance in your PayPal account or your energy supplier you are lending money free of charge. You might be relaxed about this, but while you are paying interest on your own debts you are much better getting the balances transferred to your lenders. Clear out any long term balance from PayPal etc and check your statements from your energy suppliers and any other suppliers to arrange for overpayments to be refunded.
Example
Let’s say you have a balance on your credit card of £200, which you are repaying at £5 a month. The table below shows the total interest you will pay and the time taken to repay the entire balance. At an annual interest rate of 32% (2.34% monthly interest) you will pay nearly £395 in interest on your original purchase of £200 and it will take nearly 10 years to pay the whole balance back. If the annual interest rate rises to 35% you monthly interest would be more than the £5 monthly payment and you would never pay your original £200 off.
| Annual Interest | Total Interest £ | No of months to repay loan |
| 32% | 394.82 | 119 |
| 29% | 259.65 | 92 |
| 20% | 111.85 | 63 |
| 14.9% | 70.75 | 55 |
So – if you happen to have £200 in your PayPal account that you had forgotten about at the same time as a £200 credit card balance, you could transfer the cash, pay off your credit card balance and save yourself between £70 and £395!
Manage your cashflow
Work out how much cash you actually need for your day-to-day needs. It is likely that you are receiving little or no interest on cash in the bank. If you are confident that you have surplus cash, use it to pay down any debts you have – but start with the expensive debt don’t share it out equally between the different debts you have.
For support and advice on restructuring and paying off debt contact Alterledger or visit the website alterledger.com.
