HMRC tax underpaid

The A**eholes at HMRC have just sent me a letter the day after I’ve signed on to jobseekers saying I owe them the best part of £500 for the tax year 2011 – 2012. I’ve always just been PAYE, so shall I just ignore them or tell them they’d be better of chasing Vodafone or Starbucks!!

More seriously what the hell do I do, that’s a lot of money to me.

Call them, they can be very helpful with genuine mistakes.

I had that about a 2 weeks after they rebated me £28 they sent another for over £500 with the £28 they rebated me added too but they adjusted my tax code, again, to pay it back.

Do not ignore them!

Had a similar issue with PAYE when I left a job, previous employer had calculated the tax incorrectly (somewhat ironically, this was Vodafone!) Was still my problem to sort out. Regardless of whether you are PAYE or SE, it’s still your responsibility to make sure you’re paying the right amount of tax (at least as far as HMRC are concerned.)

Yep – call them.

I’ve always found the income tax people pretty accommodating. If it is correct they can put payment plans in place.

Don’t ignore it, or fines will be added then you’ll be in deeper poo.

I got one from a debt collection agency, on behalf of HMRC, saying I owed them £400 for an unpaid VAT bill. Despite not even being VAT registered, as all my tax is PAYE, and having had no prior communications with them.

I told them they could **** right off!!!!

The first thing to remember is that you’re about to enter a kafka-esque labyrinth of ****-wittery you can scarcely imagine exists

Write to them. Don’t bother phoning them. Its a waste of time. They’re staffed by utter morons. Don’t email them either. The same ****-wits answer those too. Write to them, send it recorded delivery so everything is signed for and recorded.

Just tell them, politely, to **** off. Tell them you don’t owe them a penny, you won’t be paying them anything, and you’d quite happily go to court to point out its their error, on account of them all being incompetent idiots

I did that Mid december. I’ve not heard a word since

I did that Mid december. I’ve not heard a word since

Unfortunately Mid-December to now is not a long time in HMRC land – don’t think you’ve won just yet!

I put a legitamate claim in to them for some allowance I am allowed for washing my own uniform, they countered with saying I owe them 600 quid 😯 three long phone calls with a smug git and they said they will take a little every month to repay what I owe. I am PAYE so no idea how they come to this, guess what they havent changed my Tax code.

I did that Mid december. I’ve not heard a word since

what can possibly go wrong?

Don’t ignore them and give them a call. I’ve always found them to be pretty helpful to be honest.

On a more general note, just because you are PAYE it doesn’t mean that your tax will automatically be correct. It may well be the case that you genuinely owe this money. I’ve never been anything but PAYE but at the end ef every tax year for the last 10 years or so there has been an outstanding balance on my account. Sometimes I owe them, sometimes they owe me.

Great! Ironically I think it’s signing up to jobseekers that has triggered this, as I was avoiding it as I can’t stand the office.

Call them, they can be very helpful with genuine mistakes.

Bollocks. My previous employer sent the wrong emissions for my then company car, 156 instead of 106. I have spent hours on the phone trying to get this sorted. August I started, still not fixed. Apparently there is a “bug” in the system preventing them from resetting and refunding the previous few months. Most useless, inept, customer unfocussed bunch of morons I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with.

Bastards.

Coyote, I hope you will be applying a suitable fine and interest in the style of HMRC when requesting the return of your overpayment 🙂

I went through this yesterday. I’m not earning and wont be for a while, I owe them £700 from them having the wrong tax code. It’s not too bad, I’m paying it back over 3 years so around £20 a month.

Coyote is bang on. If you phone them, you’ll speak to a succession of half-wits who will be able to solve nothing. I’ve lost literally days of my life in the past trying to deal with the sub-human species employed at HMRC. They’ll resolve nowt over the phone!!! Meanwhile, you’ll progressively lose the will to live, as you get transferred to yet another monkey, after sitting listening to hold music for another 30 minutes

Put everything in writing. Send it to them recorded delivery. Because they don’t log your calls either. So after hours spent talking to them, when you phone next time, they’ll have no record that you ever even called. And then you’re right back to square one. By which point, you may be feeling murderous

I wonder if their management are on Ltd company arrangements. Sure it was their department that had the head chap on that arrangement?

Apparently there is a “bug” in the system preventing them from resetting and refunding the previous few months

yeah, that’s not true. i have very good knowledge of PAYE (without saying what i do!), and all they need to do is update IABD on their PAYE browser, and re trigger a Reconciliation. job done.

The A**eholes at HMRC have just sent me a letter the day after I’ve signed on to jobseekers saying I owe them the best part of £500 for the tax year 2011 – 2012.

strange timing. I assume that you leaving a previous job has triggered a reconciliation (P45?), that has seen you have a previous year un-reconciled for some reason. you have been asked to pay it as your tax code isn’t large enough to code out the debt over the next tax year.

Remember there used to be taxchecker online so you could calculate if you were owed anything using previous P60’s? Why did it disapear? I used to get money back on the back of that.

Remember there used to be taxchecker online so you could calculate if you were owed anything using previous P60’s? Why did it disapear? I used to get money back on the back of that.

Just request to do a tax return then.

Don’t bother phoning them. Its a waste of time. They’re staffed by utter morons.

In +20 years of dealing with HMRC from both employee and employer (and VAT) positions I’ve always found them to be perfectly able to deal with my (many) queries/issues.

Just call them.

Thanks warton! I’ll pop that in the arsenal for my next utter waste of time phone conversation.

b r you have been very lucky or been asking bog standard questions. Deviate from “standard” and they are useless. Cockwombles each and everyone that I’ve spoken too.

Jesus!! You lot aren’t wrong 20 mins and still on hold! To be told they’ve already collected it, I have a feeling this will run and run!

b r you have been very lucky or been asking bog standard questions. Deviate from “standard” and they are useless. Cockwombles each and everyone that I’ve spoken too.

Better to be lucky than rich as my Dad’s always says. 🙂

I can’t imagine they’ve been bog-standard; as I’ve managed a Ltd business, been an ex-Pat and had pretty much every BIK going.

I had a supposed (wrong) underpayment the year before last, they just changed my tax code and started deducting it from my salary! Getting it put right’s been basically impossible, they keep asking for evidence of something not existing. “Get a statement from the DSS for the jobseeker’s allowance you didn’t get”

(long story short- I was briefly unemployed, got a job, the revenue is convinced I was still receiving jobseeker’s allowance for the rest of the year, even though they were also getting paye from my job)

Ironically I also have an overpayment for the year before which they’re also being tenacious about not repaying.

Life really is too short to try and resolve anything with HMRC on the phone. Its like water torture.

In writing. recorded delivery. It may take years to resolve, but at least during those years, you won’t have spent weeks on hold, getting increasingly apoplectic, before talking to a succession of hairless apes

@tails its possible they made a mistake on your PAYE and you do owe that money. You should get in touch with them and explain the situation, if you are on jobseekers allowance they should agree a repayment plan so you don’t have to pay at once. It may of course be they have made a mistake in their calculations.

binners, I think I’ll take that course. Blood pressure won’t take any more bullshit from this bunch of indifferent, incompetent arseholes.

Quite possibly the most helpful or any large organisation I have ever dealt with.

I’ve never had a problem with them on the phone, they’ve been very helpful.

I ended up giving them £1200 after realising it was cheaper than continually contesting the fine I had for a VAT non-payment (that I couldn’t make because they had closed my account down inexplicably). It took me three years or repeated arguments, lost appeal applications etc before I gave in. Probably cost me 40 or so hours of umproductivity trying to argues case…

Hi,

I hope you don’t mind me posting on your forum, but I saw your HMRC related posts and wanted to let you know about a documentary series we are making. Please see the press release below:

Are you losing sleep over tax?

Award-winning programme-maker, Tiger Aspect Productions, is producing a documentary series on tax and we would like to speak to anyone in Berkshire with an ongoing tax problem.

Filmed over the course of 2014, the series will follow people as they try to deal with a broad range of tax issues. Whether you’re a plumber struggling to pay income tax, a small-business owner trying to balance the books, an IT contractor who has taken part in a tax planning scheme, or maybe you’ve been hit by a working tax credit overpayment claim, we would like to hear your story.

Please contact Ruth Newton on ruthnewton@tigeraspect.co.uk or 0208 222 4891 for more information.

All conversations are off the record and confidential and don’t oblige you to take part in the series.

Binners et al: if you’re unhappy then complain. A simple search on their website will show you how/where to. Complaining is the only way to highlight the ‘poor service’ you’ve received. HMRC’s been undergoing a huge transformation since 2005 with massive staff reductions but still manage to collect more for less year on year. The quality of service may be less than before but that’s to be expected when austerity causes huge budget cuts. If everybody who owed money paid it then maybe we’d be in a better position? 😉 Moral compass/responsibility (no dig intended but there’s plenty who do all they can not to pay what they know they owe).

Are you seriously recommending that on top of the days of my life I’ve wasted trying unsuccessfully to resolve problems with what I firmly believe to be the most incompetent organisation in the country, I now voluntarily open another potential area of dispute with them? Confident that they’ll deal with it efficiently and thoroughly?

Do you know what? I reckon I’ll leave that one for the time being.

Would it help if I mentioned I just cashed a cheque from the Inland Revenue this week for £1900?

Rachel 🙂

Deepreddave.

I am following the complaints procedure. I have been fobbed off and lied to. No one at HMRC is actually accountable for anything.

Hi,

I hope you don’t mind me posting on your forum, but I saw your HMRC related posts and wanted to let you know about a documentary series we are making. Please see the press release below:

Are you losing sleep over tax?

Award-winning programme-maker, Tiger Aspect Productions, is producing a documentary series on tax and we would like to speak to anyone in Berkshire with an ongoing tax problem.

Filmed over the course of 2014, the series will follow people as they try to deal with a broad range of tax issues. Whether you’re a plumber struggling to pay income tax, a small-business owner trying to balance the books, an IT contractor who has taken part in a tax planning scheme, or maybe you’ve been hit by a working tax credit overpayment claim, we would like to hear your story.

Please contact Ruth Newton on ruthnewton@tigeraspect.co.uk or 0208 222 4891 for more information.

All conversations are off the record and confidential and don’t oblige you to take part in the series.

@tigeraspect like many journalists and film makers you are working hard to find some muppets who can be your mouthpiece for the programme you want to make. Why don’t you just ask for any stories from plumbers or small businesses. I am sure you’d find a substantial amount who are doing jobs for cash and not declaring that to HMRC whilst the rest of the workforce on PAYE are taking up the slack paying the tax that these people should be

Binners – I am if you would like it to improve for you and everyone else. I appreciate it’s frustrating/stressful etc but HMRC, like every organisation, needs its customers to provide constructive feedback to improve. It’s not like you can go to another UK Tax Dept like you might with an LBS who were shonky 😉

Coyote – Really? I’d be showing the evidence of that to someone higher up or to the independent Adjudicator.

I have fond (bitter) memories of explaining to the ‘self assessment helpline’ what PAYE was.

Joy.

@Rachel – Was the money actually owed to you? I’ve had two cheques from HMRC which I was unable to cash as it wasn’t money I was owed… I think I’m going to cash the next one and wait for them to ask for it back!

DVLA aren’t exactly top of my popularity list either… I’d love to be able to walk out of this poorly run dump of a country and go somewhere civilised.

Yesterday, following ANOTHER error with my tax code (they taxed me on benefits from my previous employer whom I left in November) I spoke to a call handler, call handler’s manager and a complaints manager. The complaints manager has passed my complaint to another section who were supposed to call me back, they didn’t. I am wildly optimistic that I will speak to someone empowered at some point.

Oh, and the previous complaint that I logged has been closed, again without telling me.