My payments on account look too high this year — can I reduce them, and what's the risk if I get it wrong?

Hi Hazel, yes — you can reduce your payments on account, and there's a proper route for it. Log into your Self Assessment account online and use the option to reduce payments on account, or file form SA303 if you prefer paper; you're simply telling HMRC what you genuinely expect your next tax bill to be. The golden rule is to only reduce to a realistic figure, because if you reduce too far, HMRC charges late-payment interest on the shortfall from the original due dates (currently 7.75%), so an over-optimistic reduction costs you. You can reduce right down to nil if that's what you truly expect to owe, but you can't reduce below your realistic liability just to improve cashflow. The payment deadlines themselves stay the same — 31 January and 31 July — so treat the reduction as a correction of an estimate, not extra time to pay. If you're unsure, a quick mid-year profit check against your books is the safest way to land on a defensible figure.