Best money I’ve ever spent is getting an accountant, even a cheap one that is completely straight edged - you don’t have to talk to any of the bastards at hmrc. Basically the only time as a grown man I’ve come off the phone and burst into tears was on a phone call to them. Twats. Pay your taxes folks, but also try and fuck them (legally) every chance you can.
....unless you are Amazon (or similar) of course.
Another reason to fuck hmrc, once they go after Amazon and Facebook for the billions they owe I’ll be marginally ok with them treating me like a piece of shit at one of my lowest moments over a couple of k
You do realise that the money they collect is for public use and not for their own benefit, don't you?
I think you may have missed the point.
I remember when I owed several thousands in tax and didn't have the funds to pay them all in one go . I managed to get hold of the help line number and despite asking them to set up a repayment plan all I got told, and in no uncertain terms was that I had to pay up staright away! So much for for the help eh?
Money you would never have had in your account in the first place if you were PAYE...
Because people who are PAYE never have to do tax returns 🤦
Yes they do.
I used to have to do a tax return in a previous employment even though I was PAYE. Basically I used to earn a fair bit more than my basic wage, made up up from overtime and other bits that made a calculation impossible as my earnings could not be projected. Never a year went by when either I owed them some money from the previous year or they me.
Ditto mate..i am an employee and fortunately earn good money, I have had some good rises and bonuses (through dodgy workmanship of others I had to sort out) in the last few years and was asked to start filling in forms a couple of years ago.
I have a previous company pension that is taxed at source at 40% tax so not sure why I had to do this. When I contacted them it says they lag behind your earnings....My current tax code is 107T hardly worth giving me that allowance.
Best money I’ve ever spent is getting an accountant, even a cheap one that is completely straight edged - you don’t have to talk to any of the bastards at hmrc. Basically the only time as a grown man I’ve come off the phone and burst into tears was on a phone call to them. Twats. Pay your taxes folks, but also try and fuck them (legally) every chance you can.
....unless you are Amazon (or similar) of course.
Another reason to fuck hmrc, once they go after Amazon and Facebook for the billions they owe I’ll be marginally ok with them treating me like a piece of shit at one of my lowest moments over a couple of k
You do realise that the money they collect is for public use and not for their own benefit, don't you?
I think you may have missed the point.
I remember when I owed several thousands in tax and didn't have the funds to pay them all in one go . I managed to get hold of the help line number and despite asking them to set up a repayment plan all I got told, and in no uncertain terms was that I had to pay up staright away! So much for for the help eh?
Money you would never have had in your account in the first place if you were PAYE...
Because people who are PAYE never have to do tax returns 🤦
Yes they do.
Yes Chippy, I know...My comment was (sarcastically) directed at the assumption that people who are PAYE never owe extra tax.
A client of mine made a mistake with their VAT. We've helped them sort it out and wrote to HMRC to disclose the error so everything was done correctly. All very clear and the total liability was broken down into periods across the maximum 4 year period you have to go back, so basically all HMRC had to do was issue the paperwork, demand the money (plus any interest and penalties) and the client would then pay.
Only it's taken them almost a year to do anything about it, despite us chasing them. And now they have finally gotten round to it they can now only go back 4 years from the current date, so 6-9 months of the amount originally owed has fallen away. Which means theyve lost out on approx £170k because they couldn't fill out an internal form for months.
Think how long you would have to work personally to pay £170k of tax, and they have just gone and pissed that up the wall. As a taxpayer myself I find it absolutely disgusting. They are not fit for purpose and haven't been for years (decades/ever?)
The R&D claim clampdown has impacted us as HMRC are querying both our current claim and last years already paid claim... it has also led to the redundancy of one of my colleague's partners (in a completely different organization, AI innovation, went from 20 employees to 4 because the R&D refund is a significant part of their cashflow), impacted our owners friend to the extent they might go bankrupt. Another member of staff's brother has been significantly impacted too. There's only 7 of us so I'm not drawing on a huge crowd for these anecdotes...
To be clear, these aren't fraudulent claims, but claims that HMRC decide are to be investigated (and not because they smell bad, because they statistically investigate a certain amount). You write to them with supporting evidence, they then take 3 months to reply, after which if they say no, it takes another 3 months to get a reply etc.
The way people rinsed HMRC during COVID is one thing, but it feels like R&D claimants, innovation which improves the productivity and innovation of this country, are the ones being punished.
They've brought in a huge amount of "investigators" who have quotas to hit on rejections apparently...
Think how long you would have to work personally to pay £170k of tax, and they have just gone and pissed that up the wall. As a taxpayer myself I find it absolutely disgusting. They are not fit for purpose and haven't been for years (decades/ever?)
My wife has just had to pay £1400 in tax because she'd taken a second job and someone fucked up what her Primary job was, and what was her Secondary role.
They were outstanding to be fair at chasing her up over it, f**king useless, and unable to explain who'd classified the wrong job on the system, if at all in the first place... as all paperwork provided to HMRC was spot on.
I mean any Employer I've worked for, are immaculate at providing a paper trail for anything that gets processed on the system... If I do something on the system for my current Company it clearly states the person's name.
This is a minor thing, but like a good citizen I completed my self assessment tax return for the year 2022/23 in September, a couple of weeks after self assessments opened and months before the due date. I provided all the detail and paperwork they ask for and by their own calculation I had overpaid tax by about £800. Not much, but not nothing. Anyways I was told by someone at work that I would be refunded the amount, normally with six weeks. So when I hadn’t heard anything or seen a refund by November I called them. They said “oh, well send an email to our processing team so they can get it processed for you. Note because of high volumes they have an SLA for processing refunds of 3 months, but it shouldn’t take that long”.
As you can guess three months come and go and I hear nothing and don’t see a penny. Call them 3 months and a few days after my last call and, basically, absolutely nothing had happened, they say they’ll chase again. I call back two weeks ago, still nothing has happened and the person I spoke to was probably more honest than they should have been and said, basically, there’s a massive backlog and they have no idea when my return will be reviewed, refunds issues etc. I said “well what am I supposed to do?”. They said the only recourse I had was to raise a formal complaint, which I did, and have heard nothing in two weeks.
I've no desire to defend HMRC as an organisation. Frankly, I've got my own issues with them as they're really dragging their heels on my pension. I do however feel that much of the personalised criticism of their staff is over the top. I know from first hand that the vast majority are honest hard working people who want to do their best. I think that there are serious organisational problems: They are too big and their remit is too wide. It was a huge mistake merging HMCE with Inland Revenue. There has never been adequate funding to develop, upgrade and replace systems. The systems are far too complex, not through organisational choice but because they have be to cater for each and every policy change. Systems have been allowed (through consistent underfunding) to become out of date; the one I worked on in my final years was old Cobol based technology that predated anything windows based and was older than many of the people operating it. Consequently every operation had to be managed though a series of coded menus and displays were on those old green screens that you can see in '70s sci fi films. I'm not surprised at all if any given system cannot identify who made changes. Also, whisper this one because people don't like hearing it, Brexit was an absolute nightmare for HMRC, particularly the way it was rushed through with no thought from the top down as to the impacts of their decisions: Creaky systems had to be patched up and amended and all sorts of tweaks made at various times to enable new functionalities - and then reversed in some cases as various mitigations were removed. At the time when I left in November, there was still massive wastage dealing with that and I've no doubts that nothing will have changed in the last few months.
The R&D claim clampdown has impacted us as HMRC are querying both our current claim and last years already paid claim... it has also led to the redundancy of one of my colleague's partners (in a completely different organization, AI innovation, went from 20 employees to 4 because the R&D refund is a significant part of their cashflow), impacted our owners friend to the extent they might go bankrupt. Another member of staff's brother has been significantly impacted too. There's only 7 of us so I'm not drawing on a huge crowd for these anecdotes...
To be clear, these aren't fraudulent claims, but claims that HMRC decide are to be investigated (and not because they smell bad, because they statistically investigate a certain amount). You write to them with supporting evidence, they then take 3 months to reply, after which if they say no, it takes another 3 months to get a reply etc.
The way people rinsed HMRC during COVID is one thing, but it feels like R&D claimants, innovation which improves the productivity and innovation of this country, are the ones being punished.
They've brought in a huge amount of "investigators" who have quotas to hit on rejections apparently...
They're useless wankers.
We are in the process of submitting our first R and D claim. And as we are a tech product that’s essentially in early stage (so not making a profit) we are expecting a pretty significant cash payment.
We are using a third party who handle the claim for us, because otherwise I wouldn’t have had a clue what I was doing.
But I am already dreading the back and forth that from what you are seeing is almost inevitable
The R&D claim clampdown has impacted us as HMRC are querying both our current claim and last years already paid claim... it has also led to the redundancy of one of my colleague's partners (in a completely different organization, AI innovation, went from 20 employees to 4 because the R&D refund is a significant part of their cashflow), impacted our owners friend to the extent they might go bankrupt. Another member of staff's brother has been significantly impacted too. There's only 7 of us so I'm not drawing on a huge crowd for these anecdotes...
To be clear, these aren't fraudulent claims, but claims that HMRC decide are to be investigated (and not because they smell bad, because they statistically investigate a certain amount). You write to them with supporting evidence, they then take 3 months to reply, after which if they say no, it takes another 3 months to get a reply etc.
The way people rinsed HMRC during COVID is one thing, but it feels like R&D claimants, innovation which improves the productivity and innovation of this country, are the ones being punished.
They've brought in a huge amount of "investigators" who have quotas to hit on rejections apparently...
They're useless wankers.
We are in the process of submitting our first R and D claim. And as we are a tech product that’s essentially in early stage (so not making a profit) we are expecting a pretty significant cash payment.
We are using a third party who handle the claim for us, because otherwise I wouldn’t have had a clue what I was doing.
But I am already dreading the back and forth that from what you are seeing is almost inevitable
We used a third party too, apparently HMRC are investigating "1 in 10" but the people advising us are finding that it is far more than that.
Of all their customers who are being investigated, 5 months after many have submitted their supporting evidence, none have been approved yet.
I'm reading this thread, while waiting on the phone for someone to pick up at HMRC. This is the 4th time ive been on to them in last 6 weeks. They have my pay and income tax wrong on their records, it shows I was paid for 2 months AFTER I was made redundant, (no redundancy money), and that I paid Tax on said income, even though the same records shows I left the employment on 1/12/23 as per my P45. Yet it shows I was paid end of Dec 23 and end of Jan 24....I bloody wasn't I wasn't there!! So it shows I earnt more than I did, and hence they are taxing my small private pension more than they should. I've done everything HMRC have asked me to do, including getting my ex-employer to send in a 'submission form' to show income received and tax paid. Still nothing so I called them and gave them all the info over the phone, including submission form unique number and timestamp info....they were going to get straight back to me to let me know its been sorted.....here I am today 4 weeks later....and fuck all has been done! My small pension is still being walloped for tax and the Income and Tax amounts they have don't match my P45 info!!! Its just bloody disgusting, because if I owed them tax they'd be hounding me!! I'm currently into 18 mins on hold!!! FFS!!! My sister-in-law is an accountant (tax) and I've followed everything she has told me to do as well, which she then followed up with.....they are bloody useless don't expect to see anything sorted out anytime soon!!
I'm reading this thread, while waiting on the phone for someone to pick up at HMRC. This is the 4th time ive been on to them in last 6 weeks. They have my pay and income tax wrong on their records, it shows I was paid for 2 months AFTER I was made redundant, (no redundancy money), and that I paid Tax on said income, even though the same records shows I left the employment on 1/12/23 as per my P45. Yet it shows I was paid end of Dec 23 and end of Jan 24....I bloody wasn't I wasn't there!! So it shows I earnt more than I did, and hence they are taxing my small private pension more than they should. I've done everything HMRC have asked me to do, including getting my ex-employer to send in a 'submission form' to show income received and tax paid. Still nothing so I called them and gave them all the info over the phone, including submission form unique number and timestamp info....they were going to get straight back to me to let me know its been sorted.....here I am today 4 weeks later....and fuck all has been done! My small pension is still being walloped for tax and the Income and Tax amounts they have don't match my P45 info!!! Its just bloody disgusting, because if I owed them tax they'd be hounding me!! I'm currently into 18 mins on hold!!! FFS!!! My sister-in-law is an accountant (tax) and I've followed everything she has told me to do as well, which she then followed up with.....they are bloody useless don't expect to see anything sorted out anytime soon!!
Mu understanding is that accountants have a "private" number through to HMRC.
I'm reading this thread, while waiting on the phone for someone to pick up at HMRC. This is the 4th time ive been on to them in last 6 weeks. They have my pay and income tax wrong on their records, it shows I was paid for 2 months AFTER I was made redundant, (no redundancy money), and that I paid Tax on said income, even though the same records shows I left the employment on 1/12/23 as per my P45. Yet it shows I was paid end of Dec 23 and end of Jan 24....I bloody wasn't I wasn't there!! So it shows I earnt more than I did, and hence they are taxing my small private pension more than they should. I've done everything HMRC have asked me to do, including getting my ex-employer to send in a 'submission form' to show income received and tax paid. Still nothing so I called them and gave them all the info over the phone, including submission form unique number and timestamp info....they were going to get straight back to me to let me know its been sorted.....here I am today 4 weeks later....and fuck all has been done! My small pension is still being walloped for tax and the Income and Tax amounts they have don't match my P45 info!!! Its just bloody disgusting, because if I owed them tax they'd be hounding me!! I'm currently into 18 mins on hold!!! FFS!!! My sister-in-law is an accountant (tax) and I've followed everything she has told me to do as well, which she then followed up with.....they are bloody useless don't expect to see anything sorted out anytime soon!!
That’s really rubbish. I wonder how many tens of thousands of people across the country are in a similar position to you. It’s completely unacceptable.
I'm reading this thread, while waiting on the phone for someone to pick up at HMRC. This is the 4th time ive been on to them in last 6 weeks. They have my pay and income tax wrong on their records, it shows I was paid for 2 months AFTER I was made redundant, (no redundancy money), and that I paid Tax on said income, even though the same records shows I left the employment on 1/12/23 as per my P45. Yet it shows I was paid end of Dec 23 and end of Jan 24....I bloody wasn't I wasn't there!! So it shows I earnt more than I did, and hence they are taxing my small private pension more than they should. I've done everything HMRC have asked me to do, including getting my ex-employer to send in a 'submission form' to show income received and tax paid. Still nothing so I called them and gave them all the info over the phone, including submission form unique number and timestamp info....they were going to get straight back to me to let me know its been sorted.....here I am today 4 weeks later....and fuck all has been done! My small pension is still being walloped for tax and the Income and Tax amounts they have don't match my P45 info!!! Its just bloody disgusting, because if I owed them tax they'd be hounding me!! I'm currently into 18 mins on hold!!! FFS!!! My sister-in-law is an accountant (tax) and I've followed everything she has told me to do as well, which she then followed up with.....they are bloody useless don't expect to see anything sorted out anytime soon!!
Mu understanding is that accountants have a "private" number through to HMRC.
Can you ask her to call them for you?
Sadly, she is snowed under at work and obviously her clients have to come first. It goes to show just how bad the HMRC now is!! at least I got advice for free!!
Another thing that you have to deal with is that during the time they take to sort things out a button somewhere, somehow might get pressed and before you know it you have a CCJ made against you. Not saying for one moment this has or will happen in this instance but I have seen investigative TV documentary’s where similar things like this inexplicably happen. If so, have you ever gone through the mind bending experience of trying to get an incorrect CCJ removed!!!!
Another thing that you have to deal with is that during the time they take to sort things out a button somewhere, somehow might get pressed and before you know it you have a CCJ made against you. Not saying for one moment this has or will happen in this instance but I have seen investigative TV documentary’s where similar things like this inexplicably happen. If so, have you ever gone through the mind bending experience of trying to get an incorrect CCJ removed!!!!
Wouldn’t you have to be notified if a CCJ was being requested against you? And then have the opportunity to defend yourself?
Obviously it would be a really stressful/worrying thing to have to go through, but surely try can’t just press a button and “before you know it you have a CCJ made against you”?
RESULT!!! I got through after 54 mins, spoke to an adviser and he looked back at the calls/forms and amazingly, made the corrections while I was on the phone!! I no longer owe them £800 tax for income not received and my overall tax will now be reduced from next tax year! I thanked him for his help and let him know he'd taken a huge worry away from me. At last someone did their job and sorted it all out....that was 80 mins well spent in the end!
Another thing that you have to deal with is that during the time they take to sort things out a button somewhere, somehow might get pressed and before you know it you have a CCJ made against you. Not saying for one moment this has or will happen in this instance but I have seen investigative TV documentary’s where similar things like this inexplicably happen. If so, have you ever gone through the mind bending experience of trying to get an incorrect CCJ removed!!!!
Wouldn’t you have to be notified if a CCJ was being requested against you? And then have the opportunity to defend yourself?
Obviously it would be a really stressful/worrying thing to have to go through, but surely try can’t just press a button and “before you know it you have a CCJ made against you”?
What sometimes happens is that you are told that the action against you is suspended whilst further investigations take place…..this can take many months and somehow to some people here and there the CCJ’s still get issued anyway! Not at all a rarity.
Another thing that you have to deal with is that during the time they take to sort things out a button somewhere, somehow might get pressed and before you know it you have a CCJ made against you. Not saying for one moment this has or will happen in this instance but I have seen investigative TV documentary’s where similar things like this inexplicably happen. If so, have you ever gone through the mind bending experience of trying to get an incorrect CCJ removed!!!!
Wouldn’t you have to be notified if a CCJ was being requested against you? And then have the opportunity to defend yourself?
Obviously it would be a really stressful/worrying thing to have to go through, but surely try can’t just press a button and “before you know it you have a CCJ made against you”?
What sometimes happens is that you are told that the action against you is suspended whilst further investigations take place…..this can take many months and somehow to some people here and there the CCJ’s still get issued anyway! Not at all a rarity.
RESULT!!! I got through after 54 mins, spoke to an adviser and he looked back at the calls/forms and amazingly, made the corrections while I was on the phone!! I no longer owe them £800 tax for income not received and my overall tax will now be reduced from next tax year! I thanked him for his help and let him know he'd taken a huge worry away from me. At last someone did their job and sorted it all out....that was 80 mins well spent in the end!
Congratulations, your tenacity paid off! Crazy how it’s just a lottery and whether you happen to get connected to someone competent or not determines whether they actually do what they are supposed to.
I remember having a dispute with HMRC quite a few years back nd they asked me to fill out some forms and send them back. I got the forms, along with a pre addressed envelope only to be told by the post office that the post code was wrong!
A client of mine made a mistake with their VAT. We've helped them sort it out and wrote to HMRC to disclose the error so everything was done correctly. All very clear and the total liability was broken down into periods across the maximum 4 year period you have to go back, so basically all HMRC had to do was issue the paperwork, demand the money (plus any interest and penalties) and the client would then pay.
Only it's taken them almost a year to do anything about it, despite us chasing them. And now they have finally gotten round to it they can now only go back 4 years from the current date, so 6-9 months of the amount originally owed has fallen away. Which means theyve lost out on approx £170k because they couldn't fill out an internal form for months.
Think how long you would have to work personally to pay £170k of tax, and they have just gone and pissed that up the wall. As a taxpayer myself I find it absolutely disgusting. They are not fit for purpose and haven't been for years (decades/ever?)
They wrote to me five years ago telling I had to become VAT registered. I appealed and haven’t heard anything since 🤷♂️
I remember having a dispute with HMRC quite a few years back nd they asked me to fill out some forms and send them back. I got the forms, along with a pre addressed envelope only to be told by the post office that the post code was wrong!
The post code for HMRC correspondence is not one 'recognised' by the post office but post does actually find it's way there! The address is a sorting office for HMRC in Bexley. I have just been through this process and my correspondence did actually arrive!!
I remember having a dispute with HMRC quite a few years back nd they asked me to fill out some forms and send them back. I got the forms, along with a pre addressed envelope only to be told by the post office that the post code was wrong!
The post code for HMRC correspondence is not one 'recognised' by the post office but post does actually find it's way there! The address is a sorting office for HMRC in Bexley. I have just been through this process and my correspondence did actually arrive!!
It was for an office they had near Blackfriars, down near the OXO building if I remember correctly. They had basically lost one of the forms that I had filled out. I sent a new one, and yes, they lost that too!
A client of mine made a mistake with their VAT. We've helped them sort it out and wrote to HMRC to disclose the error so everything was done correctly. All very clear and the total liability was broken down into periods across the maximum 4 year period you have to go back, so basically all HMRC had to do was issue the paperwork, demand the money (plus any interest and penalties) and the client would then pay.
Only it's taken them almost a year to do anything about it, despite us chasing them. And now they have finally gotten round to it they can now only go back 4 years from the current date, so 6-9 months of the amount originally owed has fallen away. Which means theyve lost out on approx £170k because they couldn't fill out an internal form for months.
Think how long you would have to work personally to pay £170k of tax, and they have just gone and pissed that up the wall. As a taxpayer myself I find it absolutely disgusting. They are not fit for purpose and haven't been for years (decades/ever?)
Their staff numbers have been decimated over the last half dozen years At a time when there has never been so many individuals and companies obliged to submit returns Your example of £170k tax would pay at least 4 perfectly decent salaries but the crooks slicing chunks off HMRC's staff budget are sticking to their long established Plan A - namely cut, cut and cut deeply again then blame the crippled civil service department for underperformance To further poison their working environment those same crooks fuck about around the edges of tax thresholds/reliefs/allowances creating ever more legislation and backlog, none of which actually raises more tax or stimulates investment. Dealing with the fallout is frustrating indeed and makes no money for anyone
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I have a previous company pension that is taxed at source at 40% tax so not sure why I had to do this. When I contacted them it says they lag behind your earnings....My current tax code is 107T hardly worth giving me that allowance.
Only it's taken them almost a year to do anything about it, despite us chasing them. And now they have finally gotten round to it they can now only go back 4 years from the current date, so 6-9 months of the amount originally owed has fallen away. Which means theyve lost out on approx £170k because they couldn't fill out an internal form for months.
Think how long you would have to work personally to pay £170k of tax, and they have just gone and pissed that up the wall. As a taxpayer myself I find it absolutely disgusting. They are not fit for purpose and haven't been for years (decades/ever?)
To be clear, these aren't fraudulent claims, but claims that HMRC decide are to be investigated (and not because they smell bad, because they statistically investigate a certain amount). You write to them with supporting evidence, they then take 3 months to reply, after which if they say no, it takes another 3 months to get a reply etc.
The way people rinsed HMRC during COVID is one thing, but it feels like R&D claimants, innovation which improves the productivity and innovation of this country, are the ones being punished.
They've brought in a huge amount of "investigators" who have quotas to hit on rejections apparently...
They're useless wankers.
They were outstanding to be fair at chasing her up over it, f**king useless, and unable to explain who'd classified the wrong job on the system, if at all in the first place... as all paperwork provided to HMRC was spot on.
I mean any Employer I've worked for, are immaculate at providing a paper trail for anything that gets processed on the system... If I do something on the system for my current Company it clearly states the person's name.
But a complex system like that cant?
Stig (ex utter **** and useless wanker)
We are using a third party who handle the claim for us, because otherwise I wouldn’t have had a clue what I was doing.
But I am already dreading the back and forth that from what you are seeing is almost inevitable
The Post Office could offer guidance.
We used a third party too, apparently HMRC are investigating "1 in 10" but the people advising us are finding that it is far more than that.
Of all their customers who are being investigated, 5 months after many have submitted their supporting evidence, none have been approved yet.
Good luck! Hopefully it goes through first time!
Can you ask her to call them for you?
Another thing that you have to deal with is that during the time they take to sort things out a button somewhere, somehow might get pressed and before you know it you have a CCJ made against you.
Not saying for one moment this has or will happen in this instance but I have seen investigative TV documentary’s where similar things like this inexplicably happen.
If so, have you ever gone through the mind bending experience of trying to get an incorrect CCJ removed!!!!
Obviously it would be a really stressful/worrying thing to have to go through, but surely try can’t just press a button and “before you know it you have a CCJ made against you”?
Not at all a rarity.
At a time when there has never been so many individuals and companies obliged to submit returns
Your example of £170k tax would pay at least 4 perfectly decent salaries but the crooks slicing chunks off HMRC's staff budget are sticking to their long established Plan A - namely cut, cut and cut deeply again then blame the crippled civil service department for underperformance
To further poison their working environment those same crooks fuck about around the edges of tax thresholds/reliefs/allowances creating ever more legislation and backlog, none of which actually raises more tax or stimulates investment.
Dealing with the fallout is frustrating indeed and makes no money for anyone