How long for repayment of deceased's tax

John_Pierpoint

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I just hope your handwriting is better than my co-executor's ...

HMRC managed to send the cheque off to the bank where we hold the executor's account, but because one of the figures was unclear, the bank sent it back, and HMRC wrote to my late father to advise him of this.

My mother passed that letter on to my co-executor, who then supplied the information more legibly, and after about 6 weeks I phoned to find out where the money was.

Because I hadn't made the original claim, I was told (once my inside leg measurement had been verified) that HMRC could not give me any information, but could write to my co-executor to tell him what was happening.

Cue a letter to my co-executor to say that I have phoned, the person I have spoken to does not know why payment has not yet been made, but they have raised a query on the failure to pay now they have the right information, and they have asked someone else to explain this.

In other words, saying nothing at all useful!

ROTFL :wall::T:rotfl:Is it bad taste to say that your posting has given me the best laugh this week?
We could write a folk song about dealing with HMRC ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaoqJ6hr1Dc

TomsMom wrote: »

No John, this is my current account, the same account that was our joint account. They are referring to me as his personal representative but the form just asked for details of whatever bank account the refund was to be paid into.

Presumably you inherited the greater art of all your husbands estate and there was no tax to pay?
As a trustee it is a bit embarrassing trying to explain the accounts to the beneficiaries, let alone a tax investigation, if there is money sloshing about in your personal account.
[I got myself in a bit of a tangle trying to earn interest on the sums, as they rolled in, but not wanting in 2009 to have more than (then) £50K at risk in any one institution]

TomsMom

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Presumably you inherited the greater art of all your husbands estate and there was no tax to pay?
As a trustee it is a bit embarrassing trying to explain the accounts to the beneficiaries, let alone a tax investigation, if there is money sloshing about in your personal account.
[I got myself in a bit of a tangle trying to earn interest on the sums, as they rolled in, but not wanting in 2009 to have more than (then) £50K at risk in any one institution]

No inheritance tax to pay. I did get a tax demand for a very small amount they decided was underpaid for last year and I dealt with that as soon as it was requested. Also, everything came to me, we knew he was terminally ill and when he would die so there's no other beneficiaries in his will. My will takes care of our children.

I think I will write an idiot's guide for dealing with the tax office and give it to my children for when they have to deal with my affairs, and I bet even then they'll have problems :rotfl: .

Savvy_Sue

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

ROTFL :wall::T:rotfl:Is it bad taste to say that your posting has given me the best laugh this week?

I hope it's not in bad taste. Fortunately my mother isn't upset by letters coming to her late husband.

DH heard me telling HMRC that my co-executor's bad handwriting had caused this problem, and said "May you be forgiven!" when I came off the phone - my own isn't that great.

TomsMom

I can't believe I'm still waiting for this repayment of tax. I keep checking my account but nothing has appeared yet.

After HMRC wrote to me on 20 April informing me that repayment would be made, I wrote to them on 29 May asking how much longer it would take. I gave them my bank details again and told them that after 3 futile attempts, at different times of the day/evening, to speak to a human on their telephone number and giving up after 20 minutes each time, then I was no longer willing to waste any more time or money phoning them and would they either ring me or reply by post.

I've now received a letter, dated 11 June but it took a week to reach me, thanking me for my recent claim (sigh!) and stating that a payable order has been issued in accordance with my authority. No mention of my letter to them nor of their previous correspondence, or explanation of why it has taken so long. It doesn't even say "Dear Mrs X ......... Yours faithfully". It's such a cold, matter of fact letter that I have to assume that the department is run by robots.

I really feel like asking them for interest lost on the almost £400 they owe me.

The DWP weren't much better. I rang and told them that OH had been admitted to hospital and would not be returning home yet they carried on paying his DLA until the date of death 10 weeks later. Once they got their finger out they soon got in touch for repayment of overpaid DLA. Perhaps I should have told them to ask HMRC for what they owed me and let me know how much was still owing :rotfl: .

There.... that feels better now I've got that out of my system .

If anyone has any ideas how I can gee up this repayment, or maybe has a geographical number for HMRC, Self Assessment, Cardiff, I'd be very grateful.

xylophone

a payable order has been issued

This sounds like a cheque sent to your bank rather than a BACS payment?
(An SA repayment I dealt with recently says "a bank transfer for....is being made to account X and quotes name, account and sort code.

TomsMom

xylophone wrote: »

This sounds like a cheque sent to your bank rather than a BACS payment?
(An SA repayment I dealt with recently says "a bank transfer for....is being made to account X and quotes name, account and sort code.

Thanks for your reply.

Well, nothing surprises me any more with them. Bank details were given on the original R27 which I returned and requested the SA form instead. These details were again required on the Tax Return SA100 and I have given them in my recent letter. So that's three times they've had my bank details.

This letter states:

"A payable order for £XXX has been issued to the nominee in accordance with your authority.

Nominee: Mrs.... (me)
Address

If you have any queries please contact this office quoting the above reference."

So I decided one last ditch attempt to phone them on this new number seeing as I get free 0845 calls after 7pm and I took a chance they might be open until 8pm. Eureka! After a couple of messages saying they cannot take calls at this time, and redialling a couple more times, I actually got through, listened to a recording, pressed a few buttons, listened to some musak and about 10 minutes later heard ............. a real person :eek:.

I was told a payable order is being sent to me and can take up to 14 working days to arrive so it may be 2 July before I receive it. When I asked why they hadn't done a bank transfer considering I requested it and gave them my bank details three times, I was told it wasn't on the Tax Return. I told them the exact page it was written on (I kept a copy) so what was the reason for sending an order instead. I was told the details had not been transferred from the form to the computer. I was asked when I wrote my last letter and was then told they are 4 weeks behind dealing with post.

I originally returned the R27 requesting the SA form on 23 January. So that's about five and a half months to get the refund.

I'm speechless, well not quite but I really do despair. There's obviously not enough staff to deal with telephone calls, not enough staff to deal with post, information goes missing when being transferred to the computer, and the list goes on. Jeez! I think I need a "tearing my hair out" smiley but can't find one so this one will have to do :wall:!

Rant over. Slinks away into corner, shaking head from side to side.

nigem

Hi Tomsmum
I am already standing in the corner shaking my head! I had a letter saying that bank acc details were wrong, so they couldnt pay mine by BACS.
I think they made the mistake with a sort code. This was 2 weeks ago and I have written back reiterating the correct details
I was paid 37p interest, which was more than wiped out after a 10 min phone call and being kept on hold.

Nigem

John_Pierpoint

I too found myself phoning HMRC for hours on end - the phone system would keep the tax payer on hold for 20 minutes and then issue a message that it was overloaded and terminate the call.
Eventually, by phoning first thing in the morning, I got through to someone working in a call centre somewhere on the Western fringes of the Lake District. ["Excuse my asking but you are not in Scotland are you?" ]
It turned out that this was a sort of "Triage" centre, designed to separate the trivial tax queries from the more difficult cases. It did not do dead people, so it had to phone East Kilbride. However I was not allowed to talk to the organ grinder as he/she did not accept incoming calls so we enjoyed a short intercourse "via the chair" as it were; while the organ grinder got more confused and eventually undertook to call me back "later today".
Well later today actually meant "last thing tomorrow".

Eventually we got to the bottom of the problem: Silly me had completed a self assessment form, as well as an R27, for the 12 months and 6 months of the deceased's final tax liabilities, as the death was in the late summer.
"......I suppose you will be wanting the overpayment on the account back too?"

Both had been processed, the self assessment tax had been paid but the R27 had created a small refund that I could not recognise on the bank statement, as anything to do with HMRC - my back of the envelope calculation expected the result to be a small demand for more tax - but who am I to argue?

However there was no link between the R27 informal system and the Self Assessment system. The latter had been bought off by me offering it a payment on account, as I waited for the R27 to be processed (so I thought).
However like any blackmailer, the self assessment system now wanted more and more and was issuing nasty threats. Thus giving rise to my wasted days (not to mention three ignored letters) trying to get through to someone with "organ grinder" status at HMRC.

Not only was I writing to the Income Tax section asking when the final Income Tax liability would be resolved, I was ALSO writing to the Capital Taxes office, explaining that the Inheritance Tax liability could not be finalised until the Income Tax liability had been established.

From years of practical experience of "systems" I have seen identical departments using identical systems on a multinational basis, one succeeds the other flounders. If the employees cannot get on top of their system then the system will get on top of them.
It is a bit like comparing Germany with Greece.

I see that the R27 has now been redesigned - has anyone used the new form successfully? Do we have an integrated tax system now?

TomsMom

Nigem You still haven't had yours :eek:. You had your letter informing you of the repayment a weeks or two earlier than mine IIRC. I suppose I should have asked for interest but I'm losing the will to live as far as HMR are concerned. Probably not worth the hassle for the amount it would be, probably just pence like yours.

John Looks like the telephone system is a bit of a lottery. I actually made 3 calls last night, one after the other. The first one the automated system asked me to press whichever number was the correct one then told me it wasn't possible to deal with my call at the time - call terminated by the system. The second call I didn't get the choice of pressing a number, I just got the message that they couldn't deal with my call and terminated it. I had an idea they were open until 8pm and couldn't believe you could get so far with trying to get through to the right department if they were closed, I was sure there would be a message giving their opening times in that case. So I got third time lucky and managed to get connected eventually.

Not sure about the R27, mine had the codes on R27(SEES) and HMRC06/09 so I am assuming it is one of the old design.

Do they not employ anyone at HMRC with a modicum of intelligence so that they can see the system is not working and how frustrating it can be for a bereaved person to have to put up with gross inefficiency and lengthy waits for money that could be put to good use in what are frequently circumstances where income has been greatly reduced.

John_Pierpoint

Does the executor need to act as go between with one section of HMRC flaffing about over (say) £150, holding up another section trying to check (say) a £100,000 tax liability?

[Not to mention sending forms to the address of the deceased and not that of the executor]

I remember an old factory manager of mine remarking that a neat workshop might not be an efficient one, but a chaotic one could never be efficient.

The R27 has grown, here is the 8 page version.

www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/r27.pdf

https://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/r27-notes.pdf

It is looking a bit like someone, has taken our criticisms on board and is trying to knit the R27 into "The system", though asking for the R27 to be completed before the last full year tax return is asking for trouble.

Completing an online return

You can only send a tax return online once the tax year in which the person died has ended. You can't send a tax return online for a part tax year (up to the date of death) if the tax year hasn't ended yet.
To get online, you must first tell HMRC that you are the personal representative for the person who has died. You can do this by completing form R27.
Once HMRC have updated their records, to show that you are the personal representative, you'll be able to sign up for HMRC Online Services. You'll need the ten-digit Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) of the person who has died and either their National Insurance number or postcode. You’ll find the UTR on correspondence from HMRC, for example a Self Assessment Statement or tax return.

If you can’t find the UTR, you can contact the Bereavement Helpline and ask for it to be posted to your home address. HMRC can’t give you this information over the phone.
Contact the Bereavement Helpline
Sign up for Self Assessment Online
Find out more about Self Assessment Online

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sa/who-has-died.htm

and don't forget this bit:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sa/trust-estate.htm

Presumably judicious use of timing the sale of assets inside or outside of the estate can still save tax, as can efficient distribution of income (with R185) into the hands of the beneficiaries (It can be a bit of a rush getting all the income figures together on say 30th March and the cheques & R185s sent out before 6th April.)

I have noticed a time limit on the treatment of an estate in the probate and distribution for tax rate purposes. All but a small proportion of estates (7% ?) are distributed within 2 years of the death.