£100 Fine

shaz77_2

Hi All,

I returned my self assessment form on the 15th October 2011, I received a response today advising that I owe no tax, however since my form was received after the 31st October I will incur a £100 fine.

Is there anyway to get this reversed? I sent the form originally by normal 1st class post and I can't understand why it arrived so late?

Thanks in advance.

Mikeyorks

You can appeal it? But it doesn't normally take > 16 days ........ so I trust you at least had proof of posting.

The days when the penalty was reduced to Nil because no tax was due - ended last year.

shaz77_2

I've no proof of posting unfortunately.

chrismac1

There have been cases where proof of posting was not obtained, but the Tribunal judge decided it was much more likely HMRC were just pants than that the taxpayer was making it up. I can't recall the case name, but I'd start off by just appealing to HMRC. Then if your appeal is turned down you could look up the case for the next Tier. Note however that their attitude stinks. I recently went through 4 levels of HMRC management appealing an £800 PAYE fine for a client, it was about as obviously unfair fine as you could get and I was citing their own blooddy website as well as several cases! Anyway as soon as a filed Tribunal papers HMRC tossed their hand in. An easy Tribunal win for my statistics but a disgusting waste of scarce Government money.

PlutoinCapricorn

This is why everyone recommends filing online - I am very glad to have started doing this a few years ago if this is how HMRC behave. I do remember phoning them one year in the postal days to see if my form had arrived, as I was worried about late/non delivery.

I do hope that you don't have to pay the £100.

shaz77_2

PlutoinCapricorn wrote: »

This is why everyone recommends filing online - I am very glad to have started doing this a few years ago if this is how HMRC behave. I do remember phoning them one year in the postal days to see if my form had arrived, as I was worried about late/non delivery.

I do hope that you don't have to pay the £100.

Funny you should say that, I contacted them prior to the 31st of October and an advisor indicated that my form had been received, however there is now no log of this call. I will submit an appeal and post their response here.

chrismac1

All my clients are told in no uncertain terms that when they call HMRC they get the date, time, number called, name of person they spoke to and tax office they were physically sitting in. This piece of advice has collectively saved them thousands in calls HMRC were attempting to deny until confronted with this evidence!

PlutoinCapricorn

Chrismac, I aways find your posts amusing (in addition to being very useful and informative) as you never miss an opportunity to take a swipe at HMRC - probably for good reason!

Do you think they have got worse in recent years?

chrismac1

Pluto, Until 2 years ago my last direct dealings with HMRC were in 1995. In between I always had staff team members dealing directly with them, and I now regret some of things I said along the lines of "It can't be that bad." Because it is in my view much worse than my staff were telling me it was.

Back in the 90s you dealt with a person, normally a local person. Someone who knew the local economy, who could deal with more than one tax at the same time, who often had at least 5 years of tax experience and who spent a fair proportion of his or her time visting businesses and discussing issues with people like me. All that has been chucked in the bin, to be replaced with what can only be described as a total shambles.

In the past I never dealt with HMRC in the same untrusting and suspicious fashion I do now, telling clients to make notes of calls and all that sort of thing. There was no need to. They behaved like professional people with integrity, not spivvy bank complaints team staff fobbing off the customer at every opportunity. HMRC is rotten to the core, from top to bottom.

PlutoinCapricorn

Chrismac, it seems that you have good reason to be bitter and suspicious.

Shaz, this has made me think of another reason for doing it yourself online: there is no chance that some HMRC temp will input the wrong figures/use the wrong boxes while transferring the information on your form into their system. You can estimate the amount in advance, and see how close the online calculation is.

I read somewhere that HMRC will be trying to get everyone online eventually, so registering and doing it for 2011/2012 seems like a good idea.