recieved a tax underpaid letter today.

chrismac1

No-one will be surprised that I am with the OP on this one. The UK now has the longest tax code in Europe, some elements of it such as IR35 are ridiculously complex and other countries have looked into it and said "no thanks that is rubbish". My heart is in helping small businesses expand and improve profits - and hence pay MORE tax - but if a foster parent / disabled / brother of a mentally ill person / 70 year-old comes to me saying "HMRC are telling me I owe them a whole load of tax, I haven't a clue what has happened" then I am going to get my hob-nailed boots on and get stuck into HMRC even though a lot of accountants dont' touch these cases because there's minimal profit in them.

Of course it is unfair to pursue people 4 years down the road who have acted in good faith and fallen foul of HMRC incompetence - on an 80/20 basis, allowing a 20% chance that it's the employer who has messed up here. So whilst the OP may end up having to go outside HMRC to get justice, he or she in my view is quite right to say that it's unfair to behave like this. If I was to write to a client and say "How about paying that invoice from March 2008?" I'd be laughed at. Yet this is par for the course in the wacky world of HMRC, not even seen as in any way unprofessional to raise something from 2008 now and then chase it aggressively.

Mikeyorks

chrismac1 wrote: »

Of course it is unfair to pursue people 4 years down the road who have acted in good faith .

Which, of course, remains your erroneous interpretation of ESC A19, Despite threads stretching back 18 months which you keep pointing at - but don't get any the wiser from.

allowing a 20% chance that it's the employer who has messed up here.

Your perpetual jaundice does the OP no favours - yet again. From the detail given so far - the likelihood (not for the first time on these threads) is that the NHS payroll is to blame.

jem16

Mooperman wrote: »

i cant help but feel this is all really unfair.

1. ive been in the same job for 11 years now and all changes have been done behind the scenes by my employer (the NHS).

Out of interest as I can't see that you have told us so far. what happened when you changed from one trust to the other? Did you hand over a P45 or complete a P46? Or what?