Enforcement by distraint

just_trying

Forgartyblue i think you should stop posting on this thread you are not helping the op, at this distressing time . You can tell from her posts she is stressed and you are only making matters worse.

fogartyblue.

BurnleyBob wrote: »

Well, at least you acknowledged that you chose to become civil servants. But I suspect that the prime motive was the pay, perks and pension on offer rather for any altruistic public service reasons. Am I correct or being cynical?

The armed forces are all volunteers too. But once they choose to join they follow orders or risk a spell in a military clink, unlike civil servants.

This is getting completely off the thread but I will give you one more answer and move off.

If you think that working as a civil servant was all to do with pay and perks then you are barking mad!

Even as recently as 2009/10, fully qualified solicitors in my last department were only on £20,000 a year!! They could have earned more than double even treble that in the private sector.
As for perks - there weren't any. You did a thankless job, for half the true wage value, you were expected to do more work for the same pay, and if, if someone happened to give you a box of chocs, they had to be recorded!
There were no perks. The job itself was the perk, being at the sharp end trying to do your best for the general public.

Pension? The average civil servant earns approx £30,000 a year. Under the 'Gold Plated Pension Scheme' and if you had put in 40 years of work, you came out with a pension of 2/3rds your pay - £20,000 a year.

That scheme was set up and has always been the case that it was compensation for the 40 years of service earning half what you could on the other side.

Seeing that they are now taking away that scheme, should there not be a case for all civil servants now to be paid the same salary as they would be paid in industry?

The salary costs would treble over night!!

Hence the reason why there is so much discontent and why I put my papers in and retired after 40 1/2 years.
The government couldn't even think about paying civil servants their true market value - they should!

fogartyblue.

just_trying wrote: »

Forgartyblue i think you should stop posting on this thread you are not helping the op, at this distressing time . You can tell from her posts she is stressed and you are only making matters worse.

I was trying to get her to understand where she is at.
How she got there and why.

But she is continuing to say that it was not of her making and it was not for her to chase HMRC up.

To me she put her head in the sand in 2008 and to some extent still is doing and blaming everyone around her for the problems that she could have resolved 4 years ago.

She has to be dominant and determined at this late stage. There is no point in being nice about it.

I was trying to get her motivated through anger so that she can fight the situation.

She certainly won't get anywhere by telling HMRC that they are useless and that it is all their fault.

If I have wound her up to get to the point of accepting she has cocked up and then getting her to have some spirit and get in involved to fight the !!!!!!s I have done some good.

Being sympathetic to her will serve no purpose. Sympathy won't solve the problems she now faces. Fighting back will!!

NoBS_2

I never thought i'd say this but I have to agree with fogarty blue on some of the points he has made.

You cannot expect when it comes to a government department that a debt will just go away by itself. We have to go on what you are telling us OP - that you had one letter and nothing else. Regardless, the fact it went unchased or follwed up is worrying. This is your responsibility. A simple phonecall or visit to a tax office would have cleared things up.

OP you have been quoted as saying you disregarded the letter and got on with your life, so you have to see where other posters would get the impression you have ignored the debt.

Your best bet is to make immediate contact Tuesday and start the ball rolling by making a small payment. If the debt is wrong you would receive this money back but at this late stage you need to do something to try and halt action.

Elvisia

To an extent I can understand why OP thought it had gone away, I was overpaid JSA (JC's fault but I am still having to pay up) and despite sending in all the relevant info they asked for I didn't hear anything back for months. I called them and they checked my file and said there was nothing on there, and I had nothing to worry about. I knew I owed them money as I had sat and done the maths once the issue was flagged up, but there wasn't much else I could do. It wasn't until some time later that I had a letter warning me that I had to send all my bank statements ASAP or face further action that I discovered my previous correspondence had gone off for a jolly around the Job Centre, and it took a lot of detective work to trace it. There are still two lots of bank statements having a holiday somewhere in the JC. So I trit-trotted along in life for a while thinking it must all be OK as I had done everything by the book until I got the shock of the demand letter, which sent me into a tailspin and made me really furious.

So OP, I know this is stressful and utterly depressing to have hanging over you over Easter, but chin up and seek the advice you need on Tuesday. Maybe see if your work will give you time off to deal with it, if you calmly explain there is a problem that has arisen and you need to be available for it? I also wonder whether your post has gone missing, if they sent you giros and I would have thought they would have at least written to you informing you of the Magistrate Court date? So perhaps someone is nicking your post or it's just not being delivered? You could also see if you are entitled to some sort of legal aid or you could see a solicitor who can give you proper guidance?

wheezy57

fogartyblue. wrote: »

But she is continuing to say that it was not of her making and it was not for her to chase HMRC up.

To me she put her head in the sand in 2008 and to some extent still is doing and blaming everyone around her for the problems that she could have resolved 4 years ago.

I was trying to get her motivated through anger so that she can fight the situation.

She certainly won't get anywhere by telling HMRC that they are useless and that it is all their fault.

If I have wound her up to get to the point of accepting she has cocked up and then getting her to have some spirit and get in involved to fight the !!!!!!s I have done some good.
/QUOTE]
Before you go, I would like to just add my last pointers to you in particular in response to your posts. Firstly, I do not need motivated I can do that myself. I dont blame anyone - except myself. Why on earth would I tell HMRC that they are useless. They are incommunicative yes and I do blame them in that instant for not informing me of anything. You are very poud to tell me how many problems you sort out in any given day. If you werent aware of them how would you sort them out.....?

I will repeat myself yet once again. I didnt ignore anything, I didnt bury my head in the sand - I just didnt know. Is that now a crime in this country because if you didnt know you are guilty of the not-knowing crime and therefore GUILTY without question on anything from not knowing the time to not knowing what machinations of a government led department is planning to do with you whilst you are in a state of 'not knowing'.

wheezy57

pmlindyloo wrote: »

Please ignore him and the others. There are posters on here who are very judgemental which is totally against the spirit of this forum.

Did you try Payplan?

They couldnt help either. Thanks for the suggestion though.

wheezy57

NoBS wrote: »

I never thought i'd say this but I have to agree with fogarty blue on some of the points he has made.

You cannot expect when it comes to a government department that a debt will just go away by itself. We have to go on what you are telling us OP - that you had one letter and nothing else. Regardless, the fact it went unchased or follwed up is worrying. This is your responsibility. A simple phonecall or visit to a tax office would have cleared things up.

OP you have been quoted as saying you disregarded the letter and got on with your life, so you have to see where other posters would get the impression you have ignored the debt.

Your best bet is to make immediate contact Tuesday and start the ball rolling by making a small payment. If the debt is wrong you would receive this money back but at this late stage you need to do something to try and halt action.

Now, that was better put. Tuesday is the day and I shall carry on doing what I am doing now which is contacting anyone who can help. Banging on a tax officer counter is not going to help in my case. Sitting outside a CAB office is also not an option - where I live one could be there for days and noone would notice. Fruitless exercise.

Can one be punished for not realising a bad situation was looming? Can one be punished for simply not understanding the gravity of the moment?? Obviously in some posters eyes yes.

wheezy57

fogartyblue. wrote: »

eh?

Yes we chose to be civil servants with the ideas that we both wanted to ensure that the law was fairly applied to everyone.
Yes we had to follow orders, much the same as in the Armed Forces.

If I refused to carry out my duties as an officer of HMRC and as an officer of the High Court, where do you think my job would have gone?

Errr sorry guv, I don't fancy carrying out that action, it goes against my beliefs!!

Get real, the job had to be done, the pride in the job was ensuring that every UK citizen was given the same treatment - fair and impartial.

Parts of the job were awful, parts of it I hated, but overall I felt as though I had carried out my duties as sworn to the Queen that I would.

And along the way I helped many people that were suffering through lack of knowledge of the law.

For you to mention The Armed Forces and The Queen in relation to you and your job is something else. Also your last line - and along the way I helped many people that were suffering through lack of knowledge of the law. With a cursory fist, or a visit to the back of transit at night, or just a verbal. You come across as being a very aggressive and confrontational man and I feel sorry for the people you helped along the way. Off thread but if you puff up anymore with your self importance you may well implode. I am glad I am an ignorant, middleaged woman with CRIMINAL written all over me than be what you are.

dseventy

wheezy57 wrote: »

Can one be punished for not realising a bad situation was looming? Can one be punished for simply not understanding the gravity of the moment?? Obviously in some posters eyes yes.

No-one is suggesting you be punished, people are suggesting you tackel the issue (dont ignore it) and accept that by your inaction you are this point.

D70