Advice needed - Tax underpayment

nimol

I'll try to be as brief as possible. I received an occupational pension in July 2007 and started a new job in Aug 2007. I spent some time in Sept and Oct 2007 that year trying to explain to 2 different tax offices what was going on and I was eventally told everything had been sorted out. I have just receicved a tax demand for 08/09 and 09/10 as I had been receiving 2 0personal allowances and also 2 years car and fuel allowance. I rang and ascertained that there was a record of my calls from 2007 regarding my status, they stated that new codes had been issued, 1 BR but the problem was that my employers had not applied the codes - "they were probably lost in the post" My p11ds had been received for the relevant years but had not replied. They want a pretty big sum of money from me. What should I do? Pay up? Engage an expert? Fight myself? TIA for any input.

dori2o

If HMRC have acted upon the information given, but the employer for whatever reason has not operated the codes, then there is no recourse against HMRC. they have done everything they needed to do.

First of all check the calculations to see if the income they have used is correct.

Mikeyorks

nimol wrote: »

they stated that new codes had been issued,

.......... which you would have been copied? Do you have P2 (Coding Notices) from that period (and subsequently)?

nimol

Fraid not - binned them and obviously didn't check the codes had been applied.

Mikeyorks

Then you've binned critical evidence, despite the notes telling you to retain them! So you will have a bit of a job attempting to get ESC A19 applied .... as the test 'that you had reasonable belief your tax was correct' is virtually bound to fail.

You can work on the basis of your 'understanding' from HMRC that your employer has been negligent. But that's unlikely to get you far if the employer has an otherwise good record.

nimol

I've learnt lots in retrospect - I thought before that if HMRC said something it happened, my stupidity