Tax - They penalise you. Can we penalise them?

Fluffykins

Hi everyone.

I know that you can get penalised if you fail to complete and submit a tax return on time. Now: Is this one-sided or can is there a similar obligation on the Inland Revenue to provide information in a timely manner?

In September '07 I had a letter claiming my child tax credit had been overpaid to the tune of just under £200 and asking me to pay it back or else.

I wrote back asking for a breakdown of the payments made to me for the period in question. (I had a suspicion that the overpayment was the result of another cockup and I wanted to be able to prove it)

A couple of months later I got a quite unpleasantly worded letter reminding me about refunding the overpayment and asking in forthright tones for the money.

I rang the office, pointing out that I was still waiting a reply to my written question and also formally complaining that the second leter had been sent at all and also about the unnecessarily unpleasant tone.

I had an acknowledglement and apology, but have since to hear any response about my original question.

So: applying the Inland revenue's own rules about tax returns, (There is an automatic charge of £100 on any late return and this will be doubled on 31st July if the self-assessment form still has not been submitted to the taxman. For continuing failure to submit the tax return, a daily penalty of £60 can also be levied.) I think I should be entitled to £100 for the delay in replying, plus £60 a day since July 31 2008.

(No "Tongue rammed firmly into cheek" icon available, but I'd have used one if there was!)

Toodlepip123

A nice thought. However I know someone who tried this, and ended up with a retaliatory tax affairs investigation to teach him a lesson. He's still feeling the effects!

moonrakerz

"Do as I say, not as I do !"

markanders7353

If you run a small business, limited company, what you can do is deliberately overpay your corporation tax bill, not by much, say a couple hundred quid and amazingly you get refunded the overpayment automatically (well I did anyway), with interest added for the inconvenience which appears to have been backdated by quite some time.

£260 refund for a £200 overpayment! Brill. Better than sticking it in an Icelandic bank.
:T

allison_emma

I would be very careful about antagonising HMRC, they do like to make a point and PR is non-existant.

You are very lucky to have received an apology. I certainly didn't when after a long battle I proved that they had incorrectly tried to reclaim a couple of thousand pounds in unpaid income tax relating to SAYE.

Many people would have just paid up and that worries me, but now they have gone back (presumably as far as they can) asking for self certs for every year even though there was only one source of income and it was well inside the lower threshold. Despite their claims, completing tax returns are very complicated for many people and it's often easier just to agree with them and pay up.

I wonder how much they make from people who are not tenacious enough to take them on or just assume they are right in their calculations.

mtem74

You can and actually may be sucessful in getting money out of HMRC but it depends on how you word you letters. There is an offical complaints team whose job it is to deal with complaints and where appropirate they can pay compensation.