Tax Returned

anewman

It's probably no surprise to everyone here that this https://www.taxreturned.co.uk/ is effectively a {Edited by Forum Team}.

If you have a spare minute or two and a Facebook account you could go to: https://www.facebook.com/taxreturned and comment on some posts with the below link highlighting you can do it yourself free of charge. :money:

https://www.gov.uk/claim-tax-refund/too-much-tax-taken-from-your-pay

JJG

Surely it's no different than the PPI reclaiming companies? You can do it yourself or pay someone else to do it?

LadyDee

I've always received overpaid tax by cheque from HMRC automatically, I've never had to claim it.

Keep_pedalling

Sy1977 wrote: »

I was duped. A few weeks before Xmas, a link on Facebook showed up on my stream from a friend who 'liked' taxretuned. First, I typed 'taxreturned' into the Facebook search and they have 4 pages. One of them under the heading 'Government Organisation'. So I presumed that they were endorsed by or under the umbrella of the government. Nothing on their FB page (which I applied through) mentioned fees and I only found their T&C's a couple of days ago on their official website, which states you have to pay them 25% of the amount you win plus VAT. You also have to pay exorbitant fees if you are late paying them - but they are not upfront about this. What reels folk in initially - like myself - is that they use the exact same colour of green font as HMRC's tax pages throughout their pages. I just read that at one point they used HMRC's emblem unlawfully. These guys are profiteers and are purposefully deceitful about fees and the like. They delete dozens and dozens of messages from their FB pages every hour from folk who have been duped too. I got a cheque for £320 last week direct from HMRC. My cheque clears Wednesday 10/2/16 and I'm due to call taxreturned to make payment. Before I do, I think I'll be speaking to CAB as this is disgraceful.

You signed up, got money back from HMRC so exactly how have you been duped? True it is money for old rope for them, but you are still £224 better off than you would have been if you had done nothing, and hopefully you will be better off in future years because you will make sure you are paying the correct amount of tax.

Yes they use green a lot but that site looks nothing like a HMRC page.

Fuzion

I just discovered my partner has been 'done' by this, as his tax refund came via TaxReturned.co.uk and had a 20% deduction for their fees. A previous letter he showed me was from HMRC, but seemed a legitimate HMRC letter confirming that TaxReturned.co.uk were being authorised to collect the refund.

He thought that the HMRC letter was the first indication that he was due a refund, and presumed it would be coming direct from them (reading comprehension not a strong point - he probably just saw the letterhead and the refund amount). But he MUST at some point have signed up for the service - how else would they know his NI number?

Lesson learned. Looking at the HMRC website, I am not sure how he'd have got on trying to navigate their system anyway. Is there any chance that TaxReturned.co.uk are better at maximising the amount of tax refund you get, by being thorough about it?

Malthusian

Is there any chance that TaxReturned.co.uk are better at maximising the amount of tax refund you get, by being thorough about it?

No, anyone capable of holding down a minimum wage job can work out and apply for these kinds of rebates themselves.

If you had complicated tax affairs and needed someone to do a thorough job, you would employ an accountant and he would charge you on a cost basis.

tomtontom

Fuzion wrote: »

I just discovered my partner has been 'done' by this, as his tax refund came via TaxReturned.co.uk and had a 20% deduction for their fees. A previous letter he showed me was from HMRC, but seemed a legitimate HMRC letter confirming that TaxReturned.co.uk were being authorised to collect the refund.

Your partner will have signed something to give them authority to act as his agent.

daytona0

Malthusian wrote: »

No, anyone capable of holding down a minimum wage job can work out and apply for these kinds of rebates themselves.

If you had complicated tax affairs and needed someone to do a thorough job, you would employ an accountant and he would charge you on a cost basis.

It is just like any other service....

You can either do it yourself, or you can pay someone to do it for you!

Nothing wrong with that at all!

cadon

Well, I could do my own cleaning for free. Does that make my cleaner a massive scammer?

Pretty much anything you don't want to do can be done by someone else for a fee. Sometimes it works out as better value (because you can use your time for better things), sometimes it's just the cost of laziness.

This company are offering to make the sort of claims on your behalf that someone needs to make (you or an agent) in order to get tax back. HMRC won't just hand it to you. It's up to you whether you want to put in the legwork yourself and get 100% back, or whether you're happy to only get 70% back but not have the hassle of dealing with it. And of course, if you would never deal with this yourself at all because you really won't want to do it, you're comparing 70% with 0% rather than 70% with 100%.

I wouldn't use this company, but I don't think they're "effectively a scam".

Malthusian

Option A: Give details of your income, employment, and rebate eligibility to Taxreturned.co.uk, who hand it to HMRC and hand you a rebate, minus 20%.

Option B: Give details of your income, employment, and rebate eligibility to HMRC, who give you the rebate.

They're not providing you with a service of any value because it takes exactly the same amount of effort to apply through them as it does to give your details directly to HMRC.

Pennywise

Malthusian wrote: »

They're not providing you with a service of any value

Yes they are. There've been countless reports of long delays in HMRC answering the phone, them losing paperwork posted to them, them making mistakes. If you value your own time or aren't confident in dealing with it yourself, then of course, getting someone else to do it is a "service of value".

It's like saying having a window cleaner to clean my ground floor windows or having a decorator to paper my living room aren't a "service of value" because I could do it myself. But, it's a valuable service to me because I don't have the time or inclination to do it myself. The same can be applied to virtually anything.

What about the Post Office passport review service - you have to get your own photos, complete & sign the forms yourself, and the PO only check it before posting it. How is that any different - you're still doing it all yourself!

Yes, in the case of taxreturned, it is probably a misleading service, but when buying any product or service, the consumer should be diligent and not fall for marketing gimmicks. You'd hardly be on here complaining if you bought tins of beans at Asda and found out that Tesco sold them cheaper - it's your own fault for not shopping around. The old motto is valid today - "buyer beware".