Self assessment - Bank Payment Pending?

Worriedmummy

Hello, just after some advice please.
We did my husbands tax return (self employed construction industry) on Monday 14th April. We clicked the usual box for it to be paid into our bank account.
I've checked the status today as it seems to be taking longer than other years and its saying 'bank payment pending'.
Does anyone know what this means and has anyone else been waiting longer then usual this year?
It's normally just over a week for us.
Is it right that you can't chase for 4 weeks?

Delphina

It is likely that it has been picked up randomly to be manually security-checked. This is the time of the year that HMRC have the least amount of staff, so back-piling is possible. From what I have seen, this could take anything from 10 days upwards, depending on the reasons why the payments are pending.

If I were you, I would call HMRC now. The timescale usually changes due to the level of staff, you should check after 10 days, IMHO.

chrismac1

Definitely call them and do not be fobbed off by a generic answer. My approach is to say:

"What specific checks are you carrying out please? Maybe I can help you with them."

80% of the time just asking this results in the repayment being sent for processing then and there. Whether this will work for you the taxpayer - as opposed to me as agent - I can't say, but worth a try.

With CIS, the key issue is whether it is just the standard slow pay or whether there is some problem with the deduction statements. You want to know about the latter as soon as HMRC do, so you can chase the contractor and raise a Complaint Case.

Why a Compliant Case? Well if the contractor has messed up his filing that's not your fault, so per the taxpayers' charter you should not be delayed by that. Remember the contractor is filing every month or getting hit by penalties, so there really is no excuse for HMRC now saying "There is a problem with May 2013" for example as they've had this for nearly a year now.

Worriedmummy

Thank you. Will call on Monday if status hasn't changed.
Ivd read a lot of threads on here since writing the original post and we are obviously not alone.. Plus I'm guessing from other posts that pending is better than 'not used'

morgan8080_2

yea cant wait till mine says pending instead of not yet used, gonna be a few weeks I guess

Worriedmummy

Yay it's changed to 'issued' today .. Good luck to everyone else and hope they are all going through now