Any advice on tax return penalties?

danrodgers

Hi Folks,

I thought I would post here to see if anyone has any advice, as I have found myself in a somewhat sticky situation. To give a bit of background - I was self-employed for a few years, up until September 2013. I filled a tax return online for 2013/14 (it was nil) and informed the tax office I was no longer self-employed in 2014 over the phone - I was told that this had been put in their records and I would no longer have to file tax returns. In the ensuing years this has been completely ignored - I've been continuously asked to file tax returns and have been threatened with fines over and over again. I've told them repeatedly over the phone that I'm no longer self-employed. I had several letters from a bailiff company demanding £200 from me about six months ago, which I paid. This was again followed by a call to the tax office to inform them that I am no longer self-employed.

Today I look at my payslip and think to myself 'Crikey I'm being taxed an awful lot, maybe I'm on the wrong tax code'? so I decide to ring the tax office to ask about it. I am then told that my tax code has been lowered to 427L in order to get some of the money I owe them back. 'What money?' I ask and I nearly have a cardiac arrest as I'm told I owe them nearly £1500 in fines/penalties for a tax return that wasn't filed for.. 2013/14! The man I'm speaking to says he has absolutely no record of any phone calls to tell them I'm no longer self-employed and that he has no record of me filling in a tax return for 2013/14. So as it stands:

I'm overpaying in tax by about £200 a month, whilst struggling to make ends meet in London.
They also want £400 off me up front.
They tell me they have no record of anything I've ever told them.
They tell me they have no record of me filling in a tax return for 2013/14.

It looks like my current option is to fill in a form appealing to them, with no 'evidence' as they call it and no 'reasonable excuse'. If anyone has ever been in this position before and has any advice for me I would really appreciate it! I'm not really sure what to do!

Spidernick

If you filed the 13/14 tax return on-line as you say then you would have received an e-mail acknowledgement that you can send them and you should also be able to see this within the HMRC Portal if you log in. Unless you have mistakenly been set up with two Self-Assessment records in error (which is unlikely) it looks as if you didn't in fact file 13/14.

When you were sent all these reminders why didn't you just check and file the return then? Once a return has been issued it usually has to be completed, so just phoning and telling them that you're no longer self-employed isn't going to get you anywhere.

For important calls with HMRC it is imperative that you make a note of the full name of the person you spoke to, on what date and what was discussed, especially if, as you say, you've made a number of calls with no joy. If you have these details then put this in your appeal letter, but I wouldn't expect to get anywhere with your appeal.

As a minimum you should also go into your tax account and check that you don't have 2014/15 and 2015/16 tax returns issued to you. If you do, just file these (2014/15 urgently, as you are in the £10 daily-penalty regime for that year) and then ask for your SA record to be closed.