HMRC pushing for Bankruptcy and working abroad

Sofa

Hi there,

I'm a newbie so please be gentle with me.

My husband works overseas, Monday through to Friday each week, and obviously relies on debit/credit cards for booking flights etc.

He has a substantial debt with HMRC (£41k) and is paying this off at £1k a month. HMRC have now decided that this isn't enough and is pushing for bankruptcy. Our biggest concern is that without access to cards, working oversea is pretty much impossible.

My husband works, self-employed, in a specialist industry and there really are NO jobs in the UK. He would prefer to work here, rather than Europe, as we have children, but he has no choice.

Will HMRC really go through with this if it means he can no longer work?

PippaGirl_2

If there is a possibility he may be made BR I would advise opening a Co-operative Bank Cashminder account, that isn't frozen following BR and is BR friendly. It comes with internet banking and a Visa debit card so you can buy online or whatever. It should be all he needs.

Sofa

Pippa, thanks for your reply. That's really helpful and I'll look into it tomorrow.

lawstudent

I thought they had stopped making the cashminder account available. The only other account for bankrupts is the basic Barclays account but that wont be of any use if you have debts with Barclays that are in the bankruptcy.

PippaGirl_2

lawstudent wrote: »

I thought they had stopped making the cashminder account available. The only other account for bankrupts is the basic Barclays account but that wont be of any use if you have debts with Barclays that are in the bankruptcy.

It is still available. They changed the rules so that people who are already BR cannot open one, but if you prepare yourself and open one before going BR you are fine and can keep it open and run it while BR. Barclays is the only place now that allows someone already BR to open a basic account, but that doesn't come with internet banking (apart from the occasional fluke). Even people who owe Barclays money have been able to open their basic accounts. The Co-op cashminder account is better as it comes with internet banking, and I would recommend opening that if someone is intending to, or in this case, might be going BR at some stage in the future.

fiveyearplan

I agree with Pippa, open Coop cashminder account and if you need 'credit' card open a cashplus prepaid card that you can load up.

antonic

Please see my replies in RED

Sofa wrote: »

Hi there,

I'm a newbie so please be gentle with me.

My husband works overseas, Monday through to Friday each week, and obviously relies on debit/credit cards for booking flights etc.

He has a substantial debt with HMRC (£41k) and is paying this off at £1k a month. HMRC have now decided that this isn't enough and is pushing for bankruptcy. Our biggest concern is that without access to cards, working oversea is pretty much impossible. £1k month means a 41 month repayment arrangement, in my experience this is WAY longer than what HMRC will normally consider.
Longest arrangement they will normally consider is up to a year, they may consider longer but only in exceptional circumstances.


My husband works, self-employed, in a specialist industry and there really are NO jobs in the UK. He would prefer to work here, rather than Europe, as we have children, but he has no choice. Has he filed ALL of his Self Assessment returns ? - if he hasnt they will refuse any repayment request for him, IF they do agree to a repayment request he will then need to file & pay ALL future returns on time, or it will be cancelled

As he is working abroad, I would suggest that you need to act on his behalf - download an authorisation form 64-8 from here : http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/64-8.pdf
Get him to complete it fully and send it to HMRC, (keep a copy), so you can act on his behalf.

Will HMRC really go through with this if it means he can no longer work? Yes

fiveyearplan

I'm not sure if this is different however I was overpaid WTC and CTC and they allowed me to repay it over a 3 year period.