Anyone know where we stand with under payment of income tax

Bootsalebargains

My husband stopped working in 2003 but receives a money from a prolonged health insurance policy from his works he also gets Incapacity benefit. We had a letter last november saying we owe them £1100 for the year 09 -10.
I phoned them up they said we never notified them we were getting the insurance policy & incapacity and we should have paid more tax than we were. I told them I contacted them back in 2003. They looked on their system and admitted it was their error that they hadn't acted upon the information given and we haven't paid the correct tax for 8 years but they are still allowed to claim the tax back for the year 09-10. We arranged that we could pay £30 a month off the debt and our monthly income tax amount jumped up to £95 (without the £30). That was the end of it so I thought.
We have now had a letter saying we owe £3100 and they are claiming back 07-08, 08-09, 09-10. I have phoned them up again, they said the woman was correct at the time they were only claiming 09-10 then but they are now going back to 2007.
I have made an official complaint because it is their fault not ours and they've said someone will look in to it and get back to us but I am not holding out much hope.

John_Pierpoint

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/esc/esc.htm

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3127042

Bootsalebargains

Anyone know how long it take hmrc to sorting things out.
They said they were looking at our claim at the very beginning of april and i've heard nothing yet.

Bootsalebargains

Just to update I've still heard nothing back from hmrc so still don't know if they are going to make us pay this yet.

chrismac1

It's not all that unusual for it to be 12 weeks or more before you get a reply, my record is about 6 months. If and when you get a reply, my first step is always to ask "Does this letter indicate that someone in HMRC has been arsed to read my letter properly?" more often than not - I know it's hard to beleive after 3 months already - it's a form letter, mentioning nothing specific to you, no specific tax figure - just something generic they could have spat out 3 months ago.

In which case you keep going with your letters until you get a reply which clearly shows someone has been arsed to read yours properly. Then and only then do you consider whether you're likely to win, and what holes there might be in what HMRC are saying. Search on Esc A19 on this site and you'll see that it's not that unusual for them to cave in after 4 or more letters from the taxpayer. Yes, they are just like banks, they hope you'll just go away before they reach that stage. Yes it is unprofessional and a waste of taxpayers' money, but that's the way it is.

Jollyjak

Have a look at my thread - still ongoing from February. Waiting for a reply from someone shortly.....

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3052300

Bootsalebargains

Right still haven't heard anything over the previous letter but received a new one today saying we owe the £1100 from 09-10 and £800 from 10-11 no mention of the money owed from 07-08, 08-09, would this mean they are wiping the rest off.

Mikeyorks

Bootsalebargains wrote: »

.... would this mean they are wiping the rest off.

At the end of the day they're not going to have much option (in the light of your 1st post). But I would ask them to be explicit about the earlier 2 years - not take it on trust.

Bootsalebargains

I have now phoned them up, they are wiping off 07-08 so now cannot claim back to 03, we do still have to pay 08-09, 09-10, 10-11 which comes to £1843 which is alot better than £4000 which is what would originally be owed from 2007. They also said they have already claim £700 of the back payments through our tax payments since april 2011 which we didn't know we were paying so only owe approx £1100 now

Mikeyorks

I would be tempted (re-read your 1st post) to go back and argue that 08-09 should also be consigned to the HMRC bin. Others, with basically no justification, have successfully had arrears written off .... so it's worth trying to draw the line at 09-10, as originally indicated?

Bootsalebargains

Mikeyorks wrote: »

I would be tempted (re-read your 1st post) to go back and argue that 08-09 should also be consigned to the HMRC bin. Others, with basically no justification, have successfully had arrears written off .... so it's worth trying to draw the line at 09-10, as originally indicated?

I did try but she wasn't have it, I have now written a letter but do I send it to the address on the top of the p800