Received £400 in fines not sure what to do.

Chloemousse

Help I have a real mental block on tax.

About 7 years ago the Inland Revenue tried to investigate me for selling my son's second hand clothes on Ebay and insisted I completed tax returns (luckily I could prove that I only sold £100 of stuff which was second hand and they ended up owing me £1500 in backdated tax as my code was wrong).

Anyway....they continued to ask me to do returns despite being on PAYE on the lower tax bracket. Three years ago I moved house and job and am now working for a charity earning not much over minimum wage. I asked an accountant who told me all I needed to do was to inform them of my new address.

I therefore sent them details of my new address, new employer, new job salary and asked them whether it was really necessary to keep filing a self assessment as I had no outside interests and was on PAYE.

I have heard nothing for three years and suddenly out of the blue I have a tax bill of £400 (sent to my new address) claiming I owe them £400 in fines for non submission of self assessments.

Problem is I have not got £400 spare (I am on a tight budget) and also am a bit miffed to be quite honest. Reading on the forum it seems like I should pay it and then appeal. Is this right (I will have to try to get a loan out or something similar).

Has anyone else experienced this.

Mikeyorks

Chloemousse wrote: »

Has anyone else experienced this.

Lots of people who stick their heads in the sand. You need to file the outstanding Returns and that should reduce the penalties to £zero - provided the returns show no outstanding tax for the years involved.

Appealing the penalties without filing the Returns - will get you nowhere.

Chloemousse

Thanks - my point is I have received nothing from them since my letter - no self assessment packs or anything....so where do I get these self assessment packs from- they have always sent them to my in the past - they stopped once I had written to them 3 years ago

jennifernil

If you have not been requested to fill in an SA, I cannot see how they can fine you for not doing so!

Tarasam

Sounds like the outstanding returns have been going to your old address. You need to complete them asap to get the fines sorted.

professionalaccountant

Yep - Get the outstanding tax returns up to date and appeal against the fines. Providing you have no tax to pay they will get quashed. Once you have done this get yourself off the self assessment scheme ASAP. For the year ending 5 April 2011 the fines for non-submission of tax returns will stand regardless of whether there is any tax to pay or not.

Chloemousse

Thanks for all your responses. I had a redirect for 6 months at my old address and definitely nothing went there during that time - have checked with new tenants - they do get letters from time to time but say they cant recall anything important looking - just junk mail which they put gone away on. I have received nothing from the Inland Revenue for three years until a couple of weeks ago.

A bit miffed to say the least - told them of my new address (and employer etc) by letter. The other seven people I wrote to at the same time all received their letter and acted on it its just the Inland Revenue who seem to be three years behind.:mad:

I will write to them again (this time by registered post) enclosing my original letter and stating I will get them in asap and will be appealing fines on the basis that I informed them of change of address and circumstance and have received nothing for three years.

System

You are still going to have to complete the outstanding tax returns to make this go away. Sending a letter in, recorded delivery or not, means it will be another 6 to 8 weeks before you get a response and that response will be the tax returns they want you to complete. You can download the outstanding tax returns yourself from the HMRC website.

If tax returns were sent by HMRC to your old address and the new occupiers marked them as gone away then when HMRC got them back they would have set an RLS (returned letter service) signal on your record and no further correspondence would have been issued. The fact that they have just sent you a letter showing fines means that they have only recently become aware of your new address. That would indicate to me that HMRC never actually received your original letter.

suso

Chloemousse wrote: »

Thanks for all your responses. I had a redirect for 6 months at my old address and definitely nothing went there during that time - have checked with new tenants - they do get letters from time to time but say they cant recall anything important looking - just junk mail which they put gone away on. I have received nothing from the Inland Revenue for three years until a couple of weeks ago.

The other seven people I wrote to at the same time all received their letter and acted on it its just the Inland Revenue who seem to be three years behind.:mad:

Having just moved for the first time in 40 years and having a postal redirection in place, in the small print it says, certain mail government/benefit will not be redirected.

Does anyone know if tax returns come in this category?

angelpie1000

You will need to prepare the returns the Revenue claim are outstanding. It sounds like these returns would show no tax being due. If this is the case, you would then have the penalties removed (this is the last tax year for which this will happen).

I don't think you could get away without completing the returns, but good luck.