SA £100 Penalty.

legoman

Hi there,

I have not been registered as self employed for about two years.

I recently earned some money privately and wrote to HMRC asking them what I need to do and they just replied with a £100 fine letter.

Is this how it works? I just wanted to be honest and ask them if I needed to re-register as self employed and fill in a SA return on that amount etc. but they just sent the fine instead for the tax year ended 5th April 2014.

I have no idea how HMRC operates really haha. I would call them but having to wait on hold for 40 mins I thought I'd try here first.

They've given me 30 days from the date on the letter to pay but it arrived today 27th Feb and dated 18th Feb which seems pretty unfair - 9 days lost.

Thanks in advance,
Mike.

This is the letter I sent

I am writing to you in regard to £1200 earnings made in private work through family and friends from April the 23rd 2014.

Please can you inform me on what I need to do with regard to HMRC.

purdyoaten

legoman wrote: »

Hi there,

I have not been registered as self employed for about two years.

I recently earned some money privately and wrote to HMRC asking them what I need to do and they just replied with a £100 fine letter.

Is this how it works? I just wanted to be honest and ask them if I needed to re-register as self employed and fill in a SA return on that amount etc. but they just sent the fine instead for the tax year ended 5th April 2014.

I have no idea how HMRC operates really haha. I would call them but having to wait on hold for 40 mins I thought I'd try here first.

They've given me 30 days from the date on the letter to pay but it arrived today 27th Feb and dated 18th Feb which seems pretty unfair - 9 days lost.

Thanks in advance,
Mike.

This is the letter I sent

I am writing to you in regard to £1200 earnings made in private work through family and friends from April the 23rd 2014.

Please can you inform me on what I need to do with regard to HMRC.

I strongly suspect that your letter and the fine are unrelated. You stated that you 'have not been registered as self employed for about two years' - what do you mean by this? It could well be that, although you had ceased self-employment, HMRC still issued a 'notice to file' a return for 2013/14 year. Failure to file would have automatically resulted in a penalty whether you considered it necessary or not!

legoman

purdyoaten wrote: »

I strongly suspect that your letter and the fine are unrelated. You stated that you 'have not been registered as self employed for about two years' - what do you mean by this? It could well be that, although you had ceased self-employment, HMRC still issued a 'notice to file' a return for 2013/14 year. Failure to file would have automatically resulted in a penalty whether you considered it necessary or not!

Thanks for replying.

I wrote to them several times and have a letter from them confirming I no longer need to file Self Assessment returns to them as I was now only Full Time employed and not Self Employed. So I naturally didn't send any more from that instruction.

This was back in December 2014.

Saver-upper

Like purdyoaten,I think the timing is coincidence.
Money you have earnt from April 23rd last year does not need SA declaring until NEXT january,does it not?
I wonder if,with them doing everyone's taxes now (or maybe the arrival of your letter) has triggered in them a realisation that you haven't filled in SA for two years.If you have the letter from them saying you don't need to,I would quote that back to them.

purdyoaten

legoman wrote: »

Thanks for replying.

I wrote to them several times and have a letter from them confirming I no longer need to file Self Assessment returns to them as I was now only Full Time employed and not Self Employed. So I naturally didn't send any more from that instruction.

This was back in December 2014.

Is the penalty for 2013/14? - if so, the above will be the basis of your appeal.

Pennywise

legoman wrote: »

Thanks for replying.

I wrote to them several times and have a letter from them confirming I no longer need to file Self Assessment returns to them as I was now only Full Time employed and not Self Employed. So I naturally didn't send any more from that instruction.

This was back in December 2014.

And that is probably the crux of the matter. The "notice to file" for the year ended 5 April 2014 would have been sent to you in April 2014. The "no more SA returns" letter dated December 2014 would refer to the following year, i.e. 14/15 - it doesn't automatically mean you didn't need to do the outstanding one they'd already asked for!

legoman

The fine is for the year is ending 2014 and I earned the money in april 2014. I'm still a little confused...

TheCyclingProgrammer

legoman wrote: »

The fine is for the year is ending 2014 and I earned the money in april 2014. I'm still a little confused...

The money you earned on 23 April falls into the current 2014/15 tax year. The deadline for declaring it is this October. Not only that, but a small amount of one off income wouldn't normally need a tax return as HMRC would collect the tax through your tax code.

Like everyone else I think the fine is unrelated but you need to ring them.

It does doubd like you received a notice to file for 2013/14 back in April 2013 and missed the return deadline of last month. Your letter from Dec probably relates to this tax year.