Can't get through to the tax office! (be warned rant!)

dawsinho

Ok.. bit of a rant!

I receive a letter from HMRC yesterday stating I have missed the deadline for paying my self assessment... final demand, big red letters blah blah blah...

Firstly its dated 16th Feb 09! and it arrived on the 4th of march.. two and a half weeks late! somehow this is a common occurrence with letters from HMRC!

Secondly, it states ring such a number if you have any queries etc etc.. I've been trying since 5pm yesterday afternoon and every time a record message states that "due to the high volume of calls no one is available to deal with you query" what a load of tosh! is their anyway to get round this?

Just to clarify my self assessment was paid early and theirs clearly been a mix up somewhere.

Anyway rant over! has anyone had a similar experience?

Phil

cally6008

Have you tried phoning a different HMRC phone number and ask if they could help you out ?

Tea3

Have you tried the self-assessment helpline (the main number not your local office one)?
http://search2.hmrc.gov.uk/kbroker/hmrc/contactus/search.ladv?sr=0&as=1&cs=ISO-8859-1&sc=hmrc&sf=&sm=0&nh=50&ha=34&tx0=370334&fl0=__dsid:&tx1=2042&raction=view

Even if they cant help you they should be able to give you a better local office number or at least pass an internal message through to the office.

ADDED - when I check the link it wont show up correctly on my preview screen so if it does not work the number is 0845 900 0444 or 0161 931 9070

dawsinho

Thank you kindly for the info Tea3, I actually got through to them this noon time! Still can't believe it takes near 24 hours to get through to my local tax office..

All sorted in the space of 5 minutes, the fellas i spoke to was really helpful - just a shame hmrc have the worst phone system in the world ever!

Tea3

hehehe - know that feeling
We filed on time a couple of years back and they sent statements months later with £100 late filing charges on them - we managed to get through to them ok but they passed us from person to person for ages before it was finally cancelled.

Glad its all sorted for you now

ukbill69

try use other number, some are busy to get though. I always use http://www.saynoto0870.com/search.php

for my telephone worries.

martindow

On phoning I got passed to a message which says you have to appeal penalty charges in writing. I also got their letter two weeks after the supposed date of writing and had delivered the return by hand to a tax office in October. Let's hope our appeals succeed!