Absolutely fuming at the IR

BBDom

Just had to vent steam and give you my recent experience with my last SA Tax return.

Short story at the bottom, long story below .....

For once I was organised and decided to get my Tax return in with plenty of spare time. I spent the usual 3 days running around, collating invoices and receipts and what not and on the 9th September sent my tax return in by First Class Recorded Delivery.

Didn't hear anything back and checked online to find they had received it on the 11th September so breathed a sigh of relief and got back on with life :rotfl:

Imagine my dismay when on Saturday (24th October) I received a letter to say it had been rejected because the copy of the R185 I said I had enclosed was not.

Now I'm 110% certain this was enclosed. It was not necessary for the return but I thought I'd include it as a matter of courtesy. I remember scanning it and printing it and I remember checking 3 times that all the paperwork was in the envelope before I sealed it and posted it. Heck - I've even got the crease marks on the R185 where I had to fold it to get it under the scanner.

So ...... in the middle of a Postal Strike, they decide to send me a letter dated the 21st October via Second Class Post with my Tax return (returned !) requesting it all back by the 31st October. They have had a month and a half to contact me for a single piece of paper (which they have lost) which isn't necessary to be sent to accept the return (it even says this on the R185). I have heard nothing until the 24th October.

They have spelled my name wrong on the letter that was sent but thankfully included contact numbers. A quick call to the Tax Office should sort this out I thought.

Phoned the 0845 number on Saturday and asked to speak to the person who sent me the letter - nope this is a general call center. Asked if I could have the number for the Leicester Tax Office - this is where my letter came from - nope couldn't give me that. Asked if they could check my paperwork to see if the R185 was attached to the SA107 - nope couldn't do that. They then informed me that as my whole tax return was returned to me, it had been closed and would have to be redone from scratch.

The person who sent back my tax return didn't send back my SA107. How do I find out if they still have it on file ? No way of knowing ? I can't get hold of the person who sent me the letter to double check.

In the letter that was sent to me it said that I could file my Tax Return online. No no no !!!!! I have income from a Trust which excludes me from filing online and if I hadn't already found this out, I might have taken their word for it and then found myself with a nice penalty (this might still happen due to the Postal Strike).

It would have taken them a minute to give me a quick call and I could have faxed through a copy of the R185 or even posted it.

So to sum it up (short story)

9/9/2009 Posted SA Tax Return
11/9/2009 Tax return received (and they lost my R185)
14/9/2009 Logged on system
21/10/2009 Rejected and letter sent with Tax Return attached to say I hadn't sent in my R185 (which I had)
24/10/2009 Letter received by myself

Still fuming .........

BBDom

Forgot to add, as there was a Leicester fax number on the letter I received back, I did a letter of complaint and faxed it back with a request that the person who sent me the letter contacted me either by Email or Telephone. What do you think the chances of getting a call back today are ?

BBDom

Just to update, I've taken all my paperwork down to my local tax office (which is being closed soon) and had a moan at them as well. They've accepted it as complete and will pass it on to the Tax office who are dealing with my SA.

Saves a 3 hour round trip so fingers crossed (again !!!)

Ballymackeonan

I've known this sort of thing to happen before - like one person I know whio hand-delivered his tax return, admittedly with a lot of sections as he is in 2 different partberships, and who got a letter 4½ months later asking him to re-submit one of the partnership sections. At least in that case they said that there would be no penaltirs (it was after Jan 31st) - which seems to be a clear admission that they had lost the sections (tho admittedly not in so many words...)

Elaine_Wilson

Just a small point. If you are unable to file the return online because of the inadequacy of HMRC's system then you would not have to pay the penalty.

It would still be recorded as a late return but with the penalty reduced to nil (or at least, that was my experience last January).

John_Pierpoint

This happened to me in very similar circumstances only it was Christmas (2005) before I got the whole bundle back again. The reason being because I had failed to supply the 1980-something value of a house I and my sister had sold (she was not on self assessment so had not bothered to do anything).

I had taken two approaches that had failed to work:
1. There were two sorts of tax Income tax and CGT - so why had they had not processed my income tax return even if they were disputing a missing field on the CGT return ?
2. On the CGT return I had claimed exemption from CGT and only included the transaction because it was a disposal greater than 4 times the nil rate band.

What it boiled down to was:
I had to travel over 100 miles and waste a day of my life going boss eyed in the local library, guestimating the micro filmed value in 1980-something of a unique property. Just so that I could calculate how much tax I would not be paying.
As I would not be paying the tax there was no penalty to pay
I hope the jobsworth who stole a day of my life feels he earned his salary.