What a whopper !

Foggy.

Well viewers, I sent my self assessment back last week. I declared a total income of less than my personal allowance of 7,475 and know that I have no tax outstanding or any due to pay.
I checked my form for errors about 10 times, the same as i have done for the last 10 years.

Not a nice surprise to open my statement today from the taxman to find out he has entered 53k (instead of 6k) as my turnover into the computer and wants 8k tax by jan and 8k by next july plus another 3k of class 4 contributions. What a joke.

Perhaps he bought his calculator from Poundland. Will let you know how it turns out, so if this sort of thing happens to you, don't panic, were all in it together. I've sent a letter back recorded delivery explaining politely what chumps they are and expect an apology soon.:rotfl:

Pennywise

Did you post a paper return or did you submit it online?

Xutl

Foggy. wrote: »

Well viewers, I sent my self assessment back last week. I declared a total income of less than my personal allowance of 7,475 and know that I have no tax outstanding or any due to pay.
I checked my form for errors about 10 times, the same as i have done for the last 10 years.

Not a nice surprise to open my statement today from the taxman to find out he has entered 53k (instead of 6k) as my turnover into the computer and wants 8k tax by jan and 8k by next july plus another 3k of class 4 contributions. What a joke.

Perhaps he bought his calculator from Poundland. Will let you know how it turns out, so if this sort of thing happens to you, don't panic, were all in it together. I've sent a letter back recorded delivery explaining politely what chumps they are and expect an apology soon.:rotfl:

I'm guessing you filed online as the paper forms have yet to hit most doormats and there's absolutely no way the form would have been processed and a reply come out to you over the course of a week - they are sent second class after all.

So if my thinking is correct and you submitted it online then it would have been your figures that are wrong. HMRC don't enter any figures themselves. The calculation of tax due is worked from the data you enter. You may well have duplicated income on the form, added an extra zero or missed out a decimal place?

PlutoinCapricorn

My impression is that the OP completed the paper form. This is exactly why it is best to submit online.

Xutl

PlutoinCapricorn wrote: »

My impression is that the OP completed the paper form. This is exactly why it is best to submit online.

sent the paper form a week ago, had it processed and the calculation returned within the week? Impressive.:think:

PlutoinCapricorn

I have heard that HMRC will sooner or later stop accepting postal submissions, as filing online benefits everyone. I first went online for the 2008/09 tax year, and have never looked back.

This ensures that nothing can be lost in the post or inside HMRC and that figures can be entered on time and correctly.

agrinnall

I submitted my return online on the 19th and the refund is in my account today - well done HMRC (or maybe their computers, as I suspect there was little, if any, human involvement).

PaulCooper

I had a very similar experience a few years ago, submitted a paper return, shouldn't have owed them anything according to me. They came back with a £20k tax bill. It shocked me, as my natural assumption is that they are right (wrong).
When I eventually got over the shock and spoke to them, they also had put in the wrong numbers. They admitted that some of the numebrs are scanned in, some are manully input. They had managed to put a spurious figure in a box that meant I owed them a fortune!
I was amazed they could do that, I agree filing on liune would have prevented this
Paul

Foggy.

Pennywise wrote: »

Did you post a paper return or did you submit it online?

paper. It arrived on the 13th if i remember correctly and I sent it back correctly completed the same day.

Mikeyorks

I've only ever submitted one paper Return ...... back in '97 or '98. When doing the data capture they turned over 2 pages at the same time and missed the only entries that had any real data in them!

Did it online then until they decided I need not bother. I would recommend it. Much safer.

gadgetmind

PlutoinCapricorn wrote: »

I have heard that HMRC will sooner or later stop accepting postal submissions, as filing online benefits everyone.

Other than those who don't have computers, which still describes many fairly elderly people. And yes, a huge number of them still have to do tax returns.