How to get Inland Revenue to stop harassing me?

John_Pierpoint

Bet it will cost more than 200

arunadasi

max2009 wrote: »

.I am amazed you will not pay a couple of a hundred pounds to an accountant to sort all this mess out considering the consequences.The accountants fee comes off your tax anyway.

Since I have only just climbed out of a deep dark pit of debt it's not that hard to understand. My husband's sickness and early retirement and reduction of income threw everything into chaos; mortgages on two properties, for instance (the other place is now sold), and monthly payments of over EUR800 for his ex-wife's pension. We have been struggling HARD for three years even to afford the basics, and I;ve had to do it all myself as he suffers from dementia. It has not been an easy ride and "a few hundred pounds" for an accountant just were not there.
If you read back my posts you will see that I have realy only asked one question: how to get my letters and phone calls to the tax office acknowledged. It is other posters who have offered various opinions, sometimes based on conjecture. THIS is what has caused the thread to be extended.
Now that the financial situation has eased somewhat I probably will get an accountant.
Or, I might get a tax lawyer, which might be covered by an insurance police we have.
Thanks to all for their help; it is certainly more complicated than I thought.

arunadasi

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Bet it will cost more than 200

A small fortune for me!

Cook_County

arunadasi wrote: »

Since I have only just climbed out of a deep dark pit of debt it's not that hard to understand. My husband's sickness and early retirement and reduction of income threw everything into chaos; mortgages on two properties, for instance (the other place is now sold), and monthly payments of over EUR800 for his ex-wife's pension. We have been struggling HARD for three years even to afford the basics, and I;ve had to do it all myself as he suffers from dementia. It has not been an easy ride and "a few hundred pounds" for an accountant just were not there.
If you read back my posts you will see that I have realy only asked one question: how to get my letters and phone calls to the tax office acknowledged. It is other posters who have offered various opinions, sometimes based on conjecture. THIS is what has caused the thread to be extended.
Now that the financial situation has eased somewhat I probably will get an accountant.
Or, I might get a tax lawyer, which might be covered by an insurance police we have.
Thanks to all for their help; it is certainly more complicated than I thought.

You are still confused. In Germany the tax profession is regulated and one might indeed ask a Steuerberater or possibly a Rechtsanwalt for help. In the UK it would be rare to instruct a solicitor for this kind of work - instead one might choose a Chartered Tax Adviser, a Chartered Accountant or a Certified Chartered Accountant.

arunadasi

Cook_County wrote: »

You are still confused. In Germany the tax profession is regulated and one might indeed ask a Steuerberater or possibly a Rechtsanwalt for help. In the UK it would be rare to instruct a solicitor for this kind of work - instead one might choose a Chartered Tax Adviser, a Chartered Accountant or a Certified Chartered Accountant.

I need to defend myself against the surcharge. That is surely a legal matter. The IR might take me to court, as someone hinted above. An accountant would not be able to help me there. THAT is what I meant.

max2009

This thread will go on forever and is pointless.The OP would rather pay thousands to HRMC or court costs than rather get a accountant.

Elaine_Wilson

arunadasi wrote: »

I need to defend myself against the surcharge. That is surely a legal matter. The IR might take me to court, as someone hinted above. An accountant would not be able to help me there. THAT is what I meant.

I may be misunderstanding here as the tax calculations in this case are well beyond my area of expertise but surely the operation of the self assessment system is no different from the standard tax cases.

In which case the OP needs to appreciate that the interest and surcharges are not in the nature of fines which may be imposed by courts. They are simply charges defined in the legislation and are based on the amounts of tax due. The only way of overturning these is to a) prove the money was actually paid on time (not the case here), or b) change the underlying amount of tax due. This second course is ideally suited to an accountant.

Again I would ask you to find out what tax is being demanded on the statements. Tax liabilities will only normally arise from -

1. A completed self assessment return. If this is the case and the tax is wrong then the return was probably incorrectly completed. You need to see that this is corrected.

2. A determination where a return has not been submitted. In this case the only way to overturn the estimate of tax is to submit the return.

3. A "correction" made to a correct return by the Revenue. They will always notify you if they do this and you have the option to reject their correction.

In all these cases you need to be dealing with the office shown on your tax return. This is not the same as the office chasing you for the money although you should definitely keep them informed about what you are doing so that they hold off from any undesirable action.

So, forget all about interest and surcharges for the moment. Concentrate on finding out why they think you owe tax in the first place.

arunadasi

Sorry if I have !!!!ed off people on this thread. I may be naive, but it seemed a fairly straightforward case to me; I thought that once they had determined that my income was beneath the basic allowance, and that anyway I had paid in Germany, there would be an end to the letters.
My corresponcence with the IR seemed to confirm this, for instance a letter dated 6th January 2009:

"I refer to recent to your recent telephone call to our Contact Centre and apologize for the delay in replying.

I have passed your enquiry to a higher grade officer who will contact you in due course.

Please remember that the deadline for filing youe Self Assessment Tax Return is the 31 January."

Someone did indeed call me after a few weeks and they determined that a form was missing; they sent it, I filled it out, and sent it back, and I thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn't.

arunadasi

max2009 wrote: »

This thread will go on forever and is pointless.The OP would rather pay thousands to HRMC or court costs than rather get a accountant.

No, it won't go on forever, it can end right now, and it wasn't pointless, as I have learned a great deal, namely that things are not as clear-cut as I thought (see post above).

I absolutely will not have to pay thousands to the IR; court costs would be covered by my insurance.

arunadasi

Elaine_Wilson wrote: »

I may be misunderstanding here as the tax calculations in this case are well beyond my area of expertise but surely the operation of the self assessment system is no different from the standard tax cases.

In which case the OP needs to appreciate that the interest and surcharges are not in the nature of fines which may be imposed by courts. They are simply charges defined in the legislation and are based on the amounts of tax due. The only way of overturning these is to a) prove the money was actually paid on time (not the case here), or b) change the underlying amount of tax due. This second course is ideally suited to an accountant.

Again I would ask you to find out what tax is being demanded on the statements. Tax liabilities will only normally arise from -

1. A completed self assessment return. If this is the case and the tax is wrong then the return was probably incorrectly completed. You need to see that this is corrected.

2. A determination where a return has not been submitted. In this case the only way to overturn the estimate of tax is to submit the return.

3. A "correction" made to a correct return by the Revenue. They will always notify you if they do this and you have the option to reject their correction.

In all these cases you need to be dealing with the office shown on your tax return. This is not the same as the office chasing you for the money although you should definitely keep them informed about what you are doing so that they hold off from any undesirable action.

So, forget all about interest and surcharges for the moment. Concentrate on finding out why they think you owe tax in the first place.

Thank you very, very much, Elaine. I have to write an appeal against the surcharge anyway now, and I'll try to outline the case from the beginning, send a copy to every office I've received letters from, and, hopefully, bring this to a conclusion.