No fewer than 103,514 business owners are behind with their coronavirus debt repayments. 21,997 business owners have repaid their debt in full. 2,146 business owners have left the scheme. And 138,712 business owners have paid the first four instalments right on time.
Hiking route
In a letter In a statement to the House of Representatives, State Secretary Van Rij outlines the course of action that the Tax and Customs Administration’s collection department will take against business owners who fail to meet their repayment obligations:
- at February 2023 These business owners have received a letter containing information about the options available in the event of payment difficulties;
- at March 2023 all business owners will receive an up-to-date statement of their tax liabilities (this statement includes the total tax liability: COVID-19-related and other tax liabilities);
- at April 2023 Businesses that did not respond to the first letter will subsequently receive (in phases) a letter stating that they must catch up on any arrears under the payment plan within 14 days AND, within this period, must have paid any tax debts that arose after 1 October 2022;
- from half May 2023 Business owners who have not taken any action will receive (in phases) a notice revoking the payment arrangement (they will then have a further 14 days to pay their total COVID-19 tax debt, and the Tax and Customs Administration will commence standard recovery proceedings for any new tax debts);
- from June 2023 Following a (written) communication, the recovery of the debts for which the payment arrangement has been withdrawn will be initiated (in stages).
The term “phased” is used to indicate that not all business owners will receive the specified documents at the same time. To avoid a peak workload for the Tax and Customs Administration, the dispatch of these documents is spread out over time.
Large companies
A different approach applies to the 751 large companies with payment arrears. These companies were already contacted by telephone by the Tax and Customs Administration at the end of 2022. And as letters were sent as early as January 2023 to draw attention to the payment arrears, the payment arrangements for these companies can, where necessary, already be withdrawn.
Viable
Van Rij gives the following as an example of a category of business owners eligible for the withdrawal of the payment arrangement: entrepreneurs who have both pre-pandemic debt and are in arrears with their pandemic-related debt repayments, as well as being in arrears with their regular tax payments since 1 October 2022. Van Rij expects that this group of entrepreneurs will not be viable.