Taxing the elderly

John_Pierpoint

I had exactly the same problem with the tax return for the late Mr Dog.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...html?t=1164505
He had been too busy dying to complete his 07/08 tax return by 31st October.
However the moment I told HMRC that he had died some smart @rse moved 3/4 of his tax file from his former employer's pension fund's branch to his geographical "local" branch; leaving me writing to the "wrong" office..
"We cannot move everything because we have got to keep his PAYE records at the previous office".

I think I've managed to get the whole file back in the original office, where I sent the tax return (and appealed the 100 GBP fine from the computer for not achieving the 31st October deadline) so watch this space.

I had to do a tax return for my mother for about a dozen years between when she retired aged 76 and when she died.
Every year I got back something starting at 200 GBP and rising to 450 GBP.
When the Government introduced the 10% band they expected lots of pensioners to claim and set up a special office in St Austel Cornwall - they ended up with the job of sending out all the fancy self assessment forms because lots of pensioners failed to claim.
Could not be bothered/the meals on wheels man could not help/post man hadn't a clue what I was talking about. etc. etc. (Perhaps they are turning into silver surfers these days?)
So the answer to your question is probably 100's of millions, that is how I see it - I could be wrong. Perhaps we should find an MP to help us with a freedom of information application?

Mikeyorks

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

When the Government introduced the 10% band they expected lots of pensioners to claim and set up a special office in St Austel Cornwall - they ended up with the job of sending out all the fancy self assessment forms because lots of pensioners failed to claim.

St Austell has existed, with a variety of functions, within HMRC for many years. It certainly was not set up as a claims office on the back of the new 10% Savings rate as, for most pensioners, the 'new' 10% Savings rate makes little impact over and above the 'old' 10% tax rate.
St Austell 'send out forms' .... because that's always been their prime role in life. They have always supported the 'Orderline' for miscellaneous forms and also acted as the back-up for various Taxback campaigns - aimed predominantly at pensioners / low income people who were likely to be able to recover some / all of the tax deducted from Interest.

The primary Claims office, for those with no other designated tax office, is Leicester .... as it has been for many years :-

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/r40intro.htm

D1zzy wrote:

Since it can't be handled via PAYE will the N wales office process it or will they tell us to send it back to Leicester?

..... you can't code out the anticipated negative from the Savings. But just because it can't be wholly consumed within PAYE doesn't mean that office won't deal with the claim. The Leicester office is intended for those who need to make a claim but who don't have a nominated office. In your case the N Wales office should d/w.

D1zzy

One wonders why when the Belfast office (who had dealt with this for years) closed it was tranferred to Leicester in the first place - though they were happy to deal with it last year. Only this year they have decided it needs to be handled somewhere else. No change of circumstances at our end.

John_Pierpoint

Mikeyorks wrote: »

St Austell has existed, with a variety of functions, within HMRC for many years. It certainly was not set up as a claims office on the back of the new 10% Savings rate as, for most pensioners, the 'new' 10% Savings rate makes little impact over and above the 'old' 10% tax rate.
St Austell 'send out forms' .... because that's always been their prime role in life. They have always supported the 'Orderline' for miscellaneous forms and also acted as the back-up for various Taxback campaigns - aimed predominantly at pensioners / low income people who were likely to be able to recover some / all of the tax deducted from Interest.

The primary Claims office, for those with no other designated tax office, is Leicester .... as it has been for many years :-

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/r40intro.htm



..... you can't code out the anticipated negative from the Savings. But just because it can't be wholly consumed within PAYE doesn't mean that office won't deal with the claim. The Leicester office is intended for those who need to make a claim but who don't have a nominated office. In your case the N Wales office should d/w.

You are right, I did not express my self very clearly. so I will have another go.

The problem for pensioners started in 1992 when the concept of "Lower Rate", then 20% was invented by the politicians. My recollection is that was when St Austell was given the job of sorting out the rush of claims that never came. (That last bit is from memory but someone from St Austell in 1992 might be able to correct me, that must have been when I started doing my mother's tax returns. I continued to do so until her death in 2004)
As the "standard rate" dropped (and NI went up to compensate?) a "new" 10% rate was invented called "Starting Rate" to replace the "Lower Rate"; but what ever you call it the pensioner with a state pension, a tiny works pension and modest nest egg needs to reclaim some of the basic rate tax paid by the interest earned by the nest egg.
My impression is that the great majority of pensioners do not understand how this concept effects their personal income.
Shall we now talk about the pensioners with reasonably "comfortable" incomes and the effect of (upper) income limit and its avoidable tax trap.
I doubt more than one pensioner in 100 can explain what that could mean to their personal finances.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/tax_structure/table-a2a.pdf
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/tax_structure/table-a1a.pdf

D1zzy

I feel a campaign comimg on...

John_Pierpoint

Let us see what additional complexity and stealth taxes are created by this week's budget.

The application of calculating savings above £6,000 as yielding 10.4%, to create a benefits poverty trap, is very out dated and it needs to be changed very quickly. (Vince Cable & MSE forum )

Some one has just started an (upper) income limit thread to run along side this one.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1635289

D1zzy

jem16 wrote: »

I would have thought the N.Wales office would handle the claim form for a refund.

I always had to help my teenage son get a refund each year and the tax office that dealt with his main tax code handled the refund.

Just spoke to the Leicester claims centre - very apologetic about the "unhelpful letter" and return of the claim form. "YES they should handle it so please return it to them"

Hey Ho - its all in the luck of the draw...

Here goes for round 2!

margaretclare

No, you're right, I don't understand it.

Your aunt, being over age 75, should have an age-related personal allowance of £9,640. To set against that, you say she has the basic state pension, which is £95.25 weekly, £4953 a year. Deducting that figure from the personal allowance, that leaves her £4687. Next comes her BT pension, smallish you say, approx £700 a year. That still leaves her £3987 a year which she could have from savings, annuities, whatever, before she pays any tax at all.

If she's paying tax on investment income what she could have done was to stick the maximum possible into a stocks-and-shares ISA, plus a cash ISA. A couple of weeks ago she could have put in £7,200 for the tax year just gone and another £7,200 for the current one.

Unless she has a lot more investments than you describe, I can't understand why she's paying any tax at all.

I thought that my tax affairs were complicated - I get 3 separate annuities (yes, I know, wrong decisions in the past, my fault and no one else's!) and they're dealt with by different tax offices, but they all talk to each other and I don't need to fill in tax returns. I don't pay any tax at all thanks to the age-related personal allowance, oh, and my half of the married people's tax allowance.

D1zzy

Purely based on savings interest. She has cash Isas but we have avoided S &S because of her age; risk factors and simplicity. So she still has a v small amount of tax to pay - so an R85 is not applicable and we do the refund claim each year

margaretclare

D1zzy wrote: »

Purely based on savings interest. She has cash Isas but we have avoided S &S because of her age; risk factors and simplicity. So she still has a v small amount of tax to pay - so an R85 is not applicable and we do the refund claim each year

Try Hargreaves Lansdown's ISA: https://www.h-l.co.uk. They don't give advice but they do give certain recommendations. You can have it as simple or as complicated, as risky or as low-risk, as you please.

Or, the National Savings suggestion was good, and simpler.