Complaints about companies and their tax compliance?

MrsC....tobe

Hi all
My partner finished with his previous company on 30 September last year and started with the new one on 01 October. He is also in the retained fire service.

Now, he has never received a P45 from the last lot despite them claiming that they sent it out with his last payslip, in the same envelope. This envelope arrived sealed with only the payslip within! He has been trying to get this from them since October.

Since then, he has received at least 6 adjustments to his tax code, regarding all three employments (when he is only in two) and is now being taxed more than he is taking home!!!

I found some of the paperwork the other day and after looking at it carefully it seems that because of the previous company not sending out his P45, the tax office have been treating the new full time employment as a second job and the fire service as a third! He has also received letters regarding an underpayment of over £1200 whilst with the previous lot.

He contacted HMRC tonight about it all and got a very nice person to go through it all when he explained the circumstances. It turns out that he has actually OVERPAID by over £1100!!!

He also asked when they had received the company section of the P45 and they didn't notify HMRC until late December!!!

Now, employers have a legal responsibility to notify HMRC as soon as possible after a person leaves them and submit the P45. I have been unable to find the actual statue that makes this and due to to stress that he has been put through by the company he left, and their negligence, he would like to make a complaint. He is not interested in any monetary compensation but feels that they should be bout to task over what they did and failed to do!

Any advice on who he should contact would be gratefully appreciated (I think it should be HMRC that deal with it but I don't know).

Thanks in advance!

tabbyfish

Q. Is there a time limit for issuing P45s?
A. You must send Part 1 of the P45 to the PAYE tax office, or online immediately or as soon as possible after the last pay date. Parts 1A, 2 & 3 should be given to the employee as soon as possible.

However, there appears to be no penalty for filing this late as long as it is filed on line. If not filed on line there are monetary penalties which will be raised. If a P45 is never received by HMRC then the employee can produce a P46 to advise of the end of employment. Sounds like he will be getting a refund and all will be sorted. But the employer not filing the P45 timely is not something HMRC will look at as a compliance issue.

chrismac1

This won't happen, P45s become history on 5 April 2013 due to Real Time Information. And I have to admit that I normally wait at least a month before filing P45s with HMRC for clients.

The reason for this is that for about 30% of P45s there is some change or another for whatever reason - employee queries something is the main one, but also sometimes the employer suddenly thinks of something like accrued holiday pay or whatever. Now it's a shedload of hassle to bring back that employee record and make a revised payslip once the P45 has been sent, so why would you go there if you don't have to?

Having said that, all staff at all clients have my phone number - and if for any reason one of them requests a P45 which has not been sent to HMRC, I immediately transmit it. So far this tax year there has been 1 such request, and I have issued between 50 and 100 P45s.