Tax situation query

gingermark

Hi there ... Just a quick one to see if anyone has any advice or experience of a situation I have found myself in ....

Last month my tax code changed and my tax contribution jumped massively - I contacted the tax people who said that they were taking money due to a wrongly awarded tax rebate from the 08/09 year of £2000. The problem is that I did not receive this rebate. I moved house from a shared house into a private property and the cheque was sent there. The tax people took this on board and said that they would contact me after an investigation taking three weeks had taken place. I contacted them today as they had not got back to me and my latest pay slip told me that exactly the same thing had happened this month ....

I was informed today that they sent a cheque for £2000 to me on 23/01/09, after I had moved out of the house. They also state that it was cashed but cannot tell me where or how or who by I offered to send copies of my bank statements (I only have one basic account) to prove the money had never been cashed by me but was told that they would not be using these in the investigation (I was informed that anyone can cash a cheque at CashConverters etc by the chappie on the phone). They said that they have no record of where or when the cheque was cashed but seemed utterly confident that it had been.

Therefore it appears that I am liable to pay back this unreceived £2000 at any rate that they desire, taking it directly from my wages each month.

Does anyone have any idea of what I can do or any steps I can take to prove my innocence in this situation? I'm tearing my hair out as I'm being taxed an extra £200 per month as a result of this as they claw it back (not that they told me they were going to do this or sent me a letter explaining it ...). I've no idea what to do, who I can contact to get some help .... only that I have to wait another three weeks before they have 'investigated' it.

Please ... anyone any ideas what I can do?

Cheers in advance

gingermark

Elaine_Wilson

When did you move out of that house?

You said the cheque was issued on 23/01/09. This is before the end of the tax year. Did you mean 2010?

HMRC will have done the following -

Sent you a letter or a calculation (incorrect) about the overpayment.

Later they would have issued the cheque.

Sometime in January to March this year you would have been issued with a code number calculation showing that the £2,000 was to be reclaimed.

Did you receive any of these?

When did you notify HMRC of your change of address?

Sorry for all the questions but you need to establish if HMRC has made a mistake

gingermark

Hi .. thanks for the reply.

I moved out of that house at the new year (31.12.09) - I informed my work of my change of address as soon as i moved (the lady in payroll - I was under the belief that this was the person to inform rather than HMRC themselves ... I'm not so sure now!)

The reason I believe that this money was paid was that I was voluntarily declared bankrupt in September 2008 ... after this you are not supposed to pay tax for the rest of the financial year and then you repay HMRC. As it happened I continued to pay tax ... therefore I think they cottoned on to this and sent me a rebate of £2000. Or something like that ....

To answer the rest of the questions .... I didn't receive any letter about a calculation or about a cheque coming to me at that time. Nor did I receive a letter this year telling me that anything was due (although when i subsequently rang up they still had my previous address on the system - not the one they apparently sent the cheque too, that was 2 previous to that). The first I knew about it was when I received my wage slip last month and saw the amount taken - when I contacted HMRC I was informed of the £2000 and told - after my protestations - that there would be an investigation and they would get back to me within three weeks. Today, when I rang up to see what was happening, I was told that I had cashed the cheque ....

System

A prime example of why it is so important to inform everyone of changes of address. (Including HMRC which lots of people seem to forget)

HMRC should be able to trace where and when the cheque was cashed.
But, it may not be possible for them to find out who actually cashed it since the person cashing the cheque must have been doing so fraudulently.

It may then be up to you to prove that you were not in the location where the cheque was cashed on the day it was cashed.

gingermark

I suspected that they would be able to find out where and when it was cashed - the chappie on the phone really didn't want to tell me though!!

I guess I'll have to start digging my old work diaries out for when they eventually tell me .....

Cheers for your help!

TM1976

It's pretty difficult to cash a cheque not intended for you unless you share a name with the intended payee. At cash converters or any other regulated cheque cashing agency they would be require to take proof of ID before they cashed a cheque, eg photo ID, utility bills. It's possible to do this but it isn't a casual fraud.

You mention you were declared bankrupt, where a bankrupcy order is in place HMR&C should pay any overpaid into the bankrupcy agreement rather than to the individual. Are you sure this isn't what happenned?