EM6407 - Contract settlements: acceptance: SAFE - handling general payments on account

The guidance about contract settlements at EM6000+ only relates to direct tax. You must never include VAT or VAT penalties in a contract settlement.

This page explains how to handle payments on account. You must make sure that all general payments on account are locked straight away. Details of how to do this are further down the page.

General procedure for payments on account
Locking payments
Compliance Identifier
Unlocking payments

General procedure for payments on account

General payments on account are normally received in advance of a settlement charge being raised. Before the payments can be entered on SAFE, a customer account with a unique 15 character SAFE customer reference must be created by the National SAFE team or your local SAFE nominee or.

You must ask the SAFE team or SAFE nominee to set up a SAFE customer account and provide you with the SAFE customer reference, as soon has you believe that there may be additional tax to pay. Do not wait until after you have requested a payment on account.

As soon as you have established that there is additional tax to pay, you should normally request a payment or payments on account. EM1940 explains the circumstances when you must not request a payment on account. When requesting payments on account you must ask the person to quote the 15-character SAFE customer reference as a payment reference number. You should explain that this should not be used as the reference to make any other payments to HMRC.

If you are asking the National SAFE Team to set up a customer account, you must complete an Ad-hoc task in Caseflow to obtain a customer account reference. You should make your request using the form ‘IT19 SAFE reference request form’ available on SEES and send to workbasket HMRC, E&C, ISBC, T&DC, CST, 1. You should include:

  • the customer's name 
  • address
  • head of duty reference.

A SAFE nominee will require the same details. Alternatively, if the case is not on Caseflow, then use the Task Request System.  

Locking payments

At this stage, you must assess whether the Payment on Account (POA) needs to be locked.

Locking the POA should be a protective measure, not a default action. You must assess if the POA needs to be locked and only lock it if there is a clear reason to do so.

All cases should be looked at on their own merits and the following questions considered. If the answer to any of these questions is 'Yes', you should lock the POA:

  • is there a risk that the payment could be set against a future charge before your enquiry is complete?
  • does the customer have any other ongoing enquiries?
  • is the customer's behaviour or history a cause for concern?

When no risks are identified, and the POA is not at risk of being misused or misallocated, you do not need to lock it. You can stop at this stage and continue with the steps in the process you are following.

The standard lock period is 30 days. In cases where this is not enough time to complete your enquiry, you should request a specific unlock date.

To lock the POA, you must complete the SAFE 3(POA) Locking stencil, in SEES, and submit a task request to the National SAFE Team.

Payments will be automatically unlocked after 30 days. If a longer lock period is required, you should include this information in the stencil.

For Caseflow task requests, you should upload the stencil to Documentum and reference it in your task request.

For Non-Caseflow task requests, the SAFE Team will request the stencil when they pick up the task.


Compliance Identifier

When completing SAFE stencils, you must include your Compliance Identifier in the caseworker’s details section of the stencil. Where to find this or what to include will depend on your business unit. If you work in

  • ISBC this is
    • Directorate/customer group/PID of manager/PID of caseworker.
  • LB, this is
    • LB/Tax Stream/PID of CCM/PID of TS.
  • For FIS cases you must include your identifier in the following format:
    • FIS/Region/Location/PID.
  • For CLPI your identifier is in the following format:
    • WMBC/CLPI/EC/Caseflow ref/PID for example WMBC/CLPI/EC/CFS-123456/7654310.
  • For Wealthy your identifier is in the following format:
    • WMBC/Wealthy/Site name/UTR/PID of Site SO Manager, for example, WMBC/ Wealthy/Birmingham/123456789/1234567

  • For Counter-Avoidance this is:
    • CA/Location/Manager's PID/Caseworker PID

On receipt of a completed stencil, the National SAFE Team will lock the payment. If the stencil is incomplete, it will be returned to you

HMRC Payments will not deal with any telephone requests to set the clearing lock.

Unlocking payments

When you are ready to settle a case you should ask the SAFE team or SAFE nominee, to check what payments are held on SAFE. You should then follow the guidance at EM6403 to complete the appropriate SAFE Contract Stencil, which can be found in SEES. 

When you send the SAFE Contract Stencil to the SAFE nominee or SAFE Team, you must request that they contact HMRC Payments to unlock the payments on account on the same day the charge is raised.

If payments on account have been made in excess of the additional tax due or estimated to be due, you should use the Intelligent Payment Process (IPP) Single Form to request the excessive amount is repaid or to re-allocate the excessive payment(s). On submitting the form, you are provided with a unique case ID that can be retained with the customers enquiry records.