Why should I bother being honest!

Bikerking

Ok just need to let off steam somehwere. Having recently looked at my finances after retirment and gaining a small job (yes lucky me in this day and age) I realised that my income may be slightly over the thresh hold for paying 40% tax.

As I used to complete a self assessment tax returns for many years I thought I should let the authorities know being a good citizen and fill another one in, but I had lost my unique reference number. I went on the the HMRC website, filled with intrepidation as I know its one of the most complicated websites know to man. I was not disapointed and sure enough eventually found out I couldn't get my uniqure reference number reminder on line without, yes you've guessed it, my unique refernce number. Could I email them? No not an option. By the time I came to this conclusion it was passed the 8pm deadline for calling them. So the next evening after work and household duties I settled down to phoning HMRC guessing that I would be on the phone for at least half an hour. Sure enough I was presented with every option going to stop me actually speaking to a real life living person and was frequesntly asked to try the web site!! Eventually I was told they were very busy and asked mr one last time to go to the web site. This had taken about ten minutes then after the final plea to go to the web site I was told by a voice that they were so busy that they couldn't asnwer the phone and the line just went dead!!!!
So here I am trying to tell the tax authorities that I think I might owe them some money and their response it to cut me off when all I want to do is speak to a HUMAN BEING to be reminded of my log in details. Well they can go to hell I wont bother and if I am paying to mush tax they can catch up with me instead! What a waste of my time and what a rubbish service I am paying for. I might as well turn Greek and not bother paying tax at all.

00ec25

so you are now ranting about HMRC yet apparently you have never bothered to organise yourself to keep tax paperwork at all on which your UTR is documented? Eg one of your (many!) previous returns?
Agree with you however that their call centre is notorious for the delays in answering - being on hold for over 1 hour is relatively common.

BTW
You'll find your Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) on correspondence from HMRC. If you can't find it, you can contact the Self Assessment Helpline and ask for it to be sent to your home address. HMRC can't tell you your UTR over the phone.

So, rather than ranting about the call centre, why not write to them in the first place and ask for it
http://search2.hmrc.gov.uk/kbroker/hmrc/contactus/search.ladv?raction=view&fl0=__dsid%3A&sm=0&ha=34&as=1&sp_scope=hmrc&sc=hmrc&nh=10&sr=0&cs=ISO-8859-1&tx1=&tx0=49664

mrsyardbroom

HMRC protect their customers by not giving out your Unique Tax Reference number online or over the phone. To be honest I would be annoyed if I rang a tax office and my UTR was given out freely. There are only so many safety checks you can do on the phone and there are an awful lot of con men trying to pinch your ID.