HMRC overkill

jennifernil

Well, my husband has his state pension, his company pension, and a pension from abroad, plus some bank interest, once I have the figures it only takes me 5 minutes to fill it in.

Gathering the figures takes MUCH longer!

BoGoF

chrismac1 wrote: »

You might have been under the impression that HMRC are a public service organisation dedicated to reasonably efficient administration, and twenty years ago I would have said that was fair enough. No longer.

They are a tax-collecting organisation focussed on going the long way around as much as possible and asking all and sundry to send them the same information two, three or even four times. their fines and penalties are often laughable. They hide behind their silly procedures, at times for example refusing my request to simply add a postcode on to an address in their database which did not have a postcode on it. Yet when it suits them - whether through their useless database or deliberate manual intervention I know not - their silly procedures don't stop them from deleting submitted tax returns, then of course fining the taxpayer for "late submission".

Commonsense plays no part in any aspect of HMRC's operations so far as I can tell. Every month in my client database they come up with yet another howler or silly letter, which is why there are far too many accountants in this country in my view. But unless and until HMRC radically improves things (of which there is no sign yet) I will still have my fair share of pensioner tax return clients, like yourself, who really should not have to have the hassle and potential aggravation of dealing with HMRC.

Is it too much to ask that you at least attempt to answer people's questions rather than go off on one at every opportunity. Do you have this stuff on copy & paste.

chrismac1

Sorry, it was a bad week for me with HMRC. They've upheld one Complaint but tried to short change me on the client compensation, so appealing that one and considering Complaining about the Complaint! Then on another client whose previous accountant died suddenly in April 2010, they have decided this was not a "reasonable excuse" for late filing of PAYE despite the plethora of cases recently where much more trivial things have been held by Tribunals to be reasonable excuses. Bizarrely, the two lots of £400 PAYE fines have been reduced to £156 (!!!!!! did that come from?) despite HMRC ruling against my client. They have no chance of winning a Tribunal, but why do these easy peasy things have to be so hard with them?

In my experience, new clients with limited experience of dealing with HMRC have no idea - repeat no idea - just what an appalling job they are doing at the moment. So often the client thinks they must have done something wrong, but this turns out to be true in about 10% of cases. So for a new poster to this forum I will keep ramming this message home until Dave Fartnett and co. wake up and sort the mess out that they've created.

Newly_retired

Thanks for the various replies. I have been away for a week, hence delay in commenting.
One further question: will I have to list all my savings accounts and interest received even though it has been taxed at source?
As someone who keeps moving money around this will be a right pain.

Gas_Powered_Toothbrush

chrismac1 wrote: »

Dave Fartnett

You're forever decrying the lack of professionalism in HMRC, and then come out with this? Really?

Are you an accountant or a ten-year-old?

notatvstar

Newly_retired wrote: »

Thanks for the various replies. I have been away for a week, hence delay in commenting.
One further question: will I have to list all my savings accounts and interest received even though it has been taxed at source?
As someone who keeps moving money around this will be a right pain.

I'm filling out my SA online piecemeal (as suggested in a previous post, i.e. doing the bits you can do, then saving and coming back to it later on when you've found the other bits you need) and unfortunately you do have to declare your bank interest. It's easy though as they have this handy thing where you can put in just the net amount of interest and they work out the gross and the tax deducted. Mind you - you 'should' be getting a 'interest' summary every year with your bank statements and that'll have all the info on it anyway. The good thing is that they automatically round down the amount you earned and round up the tax paid... OK - it's just a couple of quid, but hey.

... what's delaying my submission is working out where to put the money I got from a 6-year investment maturing (tax paid!) - so any advice on that would be nice...

System

Newly_retired wrote: »

Thanks for the various replies. I have been away for a week, hence delay in commenting.
One further question: will I have to list all my savings accounts and interest received even though it has been taxed at source?
As someone who keeps moving money around this will be a right pain.

On your SA return, you do need to show the interest Net, Gross and Tax paid on any savings which was taxed at source.

You do not need to list all the individual savings accounts that pay taxable interest, you just add up a total for the Net interest earned across all these accounts, calculate the gross and tax, enter those values on the tax return. You can use the values from the tax certificate issued by each bank for the relevant tax year.

Remember that savings in ISA accounts do not need to be included. (Similarly for other non-taxable savings - e.g. NS&I)

notatvstar

BAA1 wrote: »

On your SA return, you do need to show the interest Net, Gross and Tax paid on any savings which was taxed at source.

You do not need to list all the individual savings accounts that pay taxable interest, you just add up a total for the Net interest earned across all these accounts, calculate the gross and tax, enter those values on the tax return. You can use the values from the tax certificate issued by each bank for the relevant tax year.

Remember that savings in ISA accounts do not need to be included. (Similarly for other non-taxable savings - e.g. NS&I)

... Oooooh. Have I been doing this wrong then? - because I put in the net, gross and tax paid for each account. Oh dear... Mind you I've only got 2 accounts so it's not much of a hassle.

System

notatvstar wrote: »

... Oooooh. Have I been doing this wrong then? - because I put in the net, gross and tax paid for each account. Oh dear... Mind you I've only got 2 accounts so it's not much of a hassle.

A small correction to my previous post, for clarification ....

The only value that needs to be entered onto the tax return is the "Net amount after tax"

See example from HMRC SA Return Demo

However... The online system (and possibly the paper system too) has a worksheet which allows you to enter the amounts for individual accounts, this worksheet then calculates the appropriate Net value for you to enter onto the SA Return form. (This worksheet is not actually a part of the SA Return form)

notatvstar

... phew - Ta muchly for the the clarification.

That last post made me need the toilet!