Please help distressed-middle-aged-lady with old (unknown) business debt….

bouncydog1

Have HMRC already contacted your friend and could she have advised them to contact you?

At the end of the day you were in this together so she has responsibility as well, regardless of whether she has a young family or not. You really must take a harder line with her and insist that she contacts the bank for copies of the statements. I would also insist that she meets with you for a proper discussion. It does sound to me as if she might know that there were payments that weren't made and is now trying to pass these on to you to deal with, particularly if you appear to be better off than her.

At the end of the day no friendship is worth spoiling your family life for. On the question of transferring all of the house deposit over to your husband, I think you will find that there will be action that could be taken by HMRC if you did this to evade paying any taxes due.

NeverAgain_2

A small point, but the bank will want to charge for copy statements.

At least if you are paying, it gives you some leverage to get them quickly.

KiKi

Hi there

Apologies, I haven't read all the replies, so this might have been covered already.

Firstly, don't panic. HMRC are very reasonable once you start working with them. They won't just send around bailiffs to take your stuff, they would much rather work with you to get the problem solved. Have a cup of tea, and take a deep breath!

Secondly, you need to establish *precisely* what HMRC are asking for. This means requesting a breakdown, year by year, of what 'PAYE contributions' are missing - and for whom. It's unfortunate you spoke to someone aggressive - most of their people are pretty good, so ring them back up and ask for the exact details: you want them to give you a detailed breakdown over the phone, followed up in writing.

I would assume that your partner took a salary from the business, or you employed other people in the business, and HMRC are claiming that you failed to pay income tax and / or national insurance on their behalf. You would also had to have had an accountant. This means going back to them and asking for the evidence of paid income tax and NI on ALL employed staff, including your partner. The accountant should have a copy even if your partner shredded it.

HMRC don't always get it right, and it may be that you can provide evidence of the payments. I would be very surprised if your accountant hadn't done correct payroll for tax and NI, or calculated it wrong and it's taken this long to come to light. It may also be - and I'm sorry to say this - that your partner in the business deliberately didn't pay contributions to get out of it because the business was failing. Anyone with a business HAS to keep documents and business bank statements for six years - the fact that she's torn them up could be rather telling.

Forget about dumping your friend in it for now. Sadly it seems that she's not going to help, so take control and get a statement from HRMC of exactly what you owe. Tell them you're sorting it out, and you're getting an accountant involved, and it will be paid. But you need them to send the breakdown so you can get things moving. They won't care about your story, only that you're amiable and solving the problem. Once you have the information you can start working back to see if this is a debt, or if there is a way it can be resolved.

(It may be that if it comes to light that the accountant did everything right and the only PAYE and NI that's wrong is your partner's, then she was complicit in fraud.)

I don't know enough about income tax and NI and what HMRC can do, but I strongly recommend that you re-post your same first post on the 'Cutting Tax' board as there are tax and HMRC experts over there. The people on here are fab, but an HMRC expert may be able to give you a different insight, and I suspect that might be what you need here for the business side of things.

HTH
KiKi

antrobus

KiKi wrote: »

I don't know enough about income tax and NI and what HMRC can do, but I strongly recommend that you re-post your same first post on the 'Cutting Tax' board as there are tax and HMRC experts over there. The people on here are fab, but an HMRC expert may be able to give you a different insight, and I suspect that might be what you need here for the business side of things.

I would second that motion.

In principle I think we've established that there was a partnership with an outstanding debt for PAYE, and thus OP is liable for that debt. There are however some posters on the Cutting Tax board who will have far more experience of the practicalities of the situation.

FraudBuster

and I'm sorry to say this - that your partner in the business deliberately didn't pay contributions to get out of it because the business was failing.

My guess is that the scatty business partner forgot to send the PAYE funds to HMRC as she was using them to try and keep a sinking business afloat.