Tax refund cashed by someone else??

Make-it-3

My OH has been chasing HMRC all year for a recalculation of tax as we believed he was due a refund. After final escalating it to Complaints he was told it was being processed.

Now he has chased again and they called him yesterday and said the refund was sent by cheque and has been cashed. Yet he's received nothing.

Just wondering if this seems a likely story - the post service our end is pretty reliable but don't know whether its HMRC mix up or some criminal activity.

Any tax advisers on here know if this sort of thing happens often?

sheramber

Yes, it can happen but usually it is done by someone known to the person- a family member, a girlfriend etc
First check what address the cheque was sent to.
Has your OH had a previous address that could still be on their records? I have dealt with cases where the address on record was years out of date and the person had had six addresses since .

Make-it-3

No, the address the tax office have is correct and other correspondence from them has arrived safely, just not this. We don't live in a house with other occupants and my OH's name is pretty unique, not a "John Smith".

agrinnall

Sounds to me like you need to get the police involved, if it's actually happened then it's one or both of theft or fraud.

jem16

Make-it-3 wrote: »

Now he has chased again and they called him yesterday and said the refund was sent by cheque and has been cashed. Yet he's received nothing.

Just wondering if this seems a likely story - the post service our end is pretty reliable but don't know whether its HMRC mix up or some criminal activity.

It happened to my daughter-in-law although the cheque was supposedly sent to her bank when she had asked for a direct transfer into her bank account. Apparently on PAYE that means they send a cheque to the bank as opposed to an electronic transfer but they neglected to tell her that.

She wrote a complaint to HMRC and asked them to investigate as phoning HMRC she was simply told there was nothing that could be done. Shortly after the complaint was received, the money appeared in her bank account.

She never did get the explanation that had been promised.

Make-it-3

HMRC are hugely inconsistent with how they send refunds. The previous reclaim they just left him a message on his online account to say it had been processed and was ready to claim.

I have checked our bank account (in case they did BACS) but no and anyway the lady who called him definitely said the cheque had been posted to him and cashed.

She said to leave it with them and they will follow up - made it sound like this isn't an uncommon occurence. I wonder if its an inside job?

None of it looks like that refund is going to find its proper place any time soon :mad: