can i claim compensation from the hmrc??

shelleyelm

hi i was wandering if anyone has any advice please? The hmrc tried to take money from my husbands bank account 3 times when he did not owe them any money! They were informed on each occassion but continued to be incompetent. My husbands account was closed by the bank due to the errors of the hmrc and now he has a bad credit rating. I am wandering if he has a case for compensation and if so how much are they likely to pay out? Any advice greatly appreciated. This has also caused great stress and anxiety as my husband is self employed but now has no bank account!!!

Mikeyorks

Don't quite follow this? The only way HMRC have direct access to your account is via Direct Debit?

Until Jan 09 the only DD they facilitated was for instalment arrangements where a payment arrangement was in place .... and more than 3 instalments had been agreed. If they did make an error there (tax cleared via other means and their DD system not talking to the SA (?) system?) .... you could have just cancelled the DD mandate at your bank and written HMRC?

shelleyelm

we had a payment set up prior with the hmrc and we did cancel it with the hmrc as the bank informed us to cancel with them. Our account was paid up in full but, they went on to request 3 payments from the bank and each time we rang and informed them of the error and we also received a letter of apology the 2nd time so it appears to me that they have made some error otherwise we would not have received a letter of apology.

Mikeyorks

Write to the Complaints Manager at the Accounts Office that was handling your DDs (Shipley for London / South East / South West / Wales & NI .... Cumbernauld for rest of UK). Address should be on the letter you had?

Set out the problem you had .... what happened and the consequences. They don't pay 'compensation' in a case such as this but should offer an ex-gratia payment if they're at fault.

They should also (and no harm prompting this) write to your Bank and clarify (assuming this the sole reason for closure of the account?) that they were assaulting your account without cause.

Bit of background on their complaints procedure :-

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/dealingwith/complain.htm