Tax return submitted - NI to pay, but account says 'nothing to pay'!

[Porridge]

I was too scared to post this earlier today as I felt such a wally for leaving it so late!!!

I had the accounts prepared ages ago, so knew I had no tax to pay but a small bill for Class 4 NI (I have a dd set up and pay monthly, but I guess my earnings took me over this amount).

Well, when I finally psyched myself up to hit 'submit' this morning (!) BUT it said at the end 'nothing to pay'. I was v confused as it had clearly stated the NI amount to pay earlier on (and is on the final printout I did seconds before I hit submit).

Then, predictably, the paynow system kept timing out, so I started to panic about the fine - is it for not submitting the return? Or not paying the bill? Does it apply to NI only payments???

Anyway, I decided to pay via my online bank, and hopefully did it correctly. It said it would go through within 2 hours (and I made sure to print that page too).

Does anyone else know why it would say 'nothing to pay' when there was, in fact, NI to pay??? Am I missing something? Do they change your DD amounts or something?! Will I have ended up paying twice?!

[MrAnchovy]

The monthly amount you pay is for Class 2 NI (some people pay this six monthly) and is a fixed amount which is nothing to do with Class 4 NI.

It's just as well you didn't pay by BillPay as this takes 3 days to get through to HMRC. I have no idea why there seems to be confusion over whether any payment is due; I suggest you log on and look at what it says under "At a glance" - this won't show anything you put through today but if your tax return was submitted some time ago it should show you whether you did need to pay anything today.

[MrAnchovy]

Oh the fine is for not submitting the return, you can pay up to 29 days late and you only have to pay a small amount of interest (effectively 3% APR).

[Porridge]

Thanks mr a. I was secretly hoping you'd be listening! :-)