'Confirm where you are resident for tax purposes' letter has come through the post...

robusta

Hi bertiewhite

In my case I do not live in the UK anymore. I left the UK more than 8 years ago. Did not close my account. Lloyds TSB put my account dormant since I could not access it online. I finally requested the account closure recently by post.

I live abroad at the moment in eastern Europe.

Thanks for your input.

R

badmemory

robusta wrote: »

Hi Cook_County,

Thanks for your response.

Are you sure there is no risk if we are not responding to the letter? I received it in France and I am resident abroad. I was thinking of calling and just try to see if this could be sorted by phone.

R

Please recheck the letter. The original one said that they would report your account to HMRC (the info on which may be sent to USA) and they reserve the right to close your account if they are not satisfied.

robusta

Hi Cook_County,


I will check it again.
I did not have much left before they deactivated my account (around 50 pound). They can close it for good if they want.
I requested the closure by post as I could not go there myself. I wanted to finally sort this out after many years:rotfl:

Thanks.

R

Cook_County

robusta wrote: »

Hi Cook_County,

Thanks for your response.

Are you sure there is no risk if we are not responding to the letter? I received it in France and I am resident abroad. I was thinking of calling and just try to see if this could be sorted by phone.

R

France I believe requires declaration of non-French bank accounts; this might be a legal obligation for you.

jedi_jen

Hi,

Ive recieved the same letter from Barclays which i thought was really odd considering that I dont bank with Barclays. Turns out its because i downloaded a pingit app years ago.
Anyway I rang them and they cant find my details anywhere on their system so I said well then there's no reason for me to respond to your letter if you don't have me as an account holder to which I was told (by the counter fraud team) that I should still respond to the letter asking for all my personal details that was sent to an address that is apparently not on their system. - I don't actually think the letter is fraudulent but given that they cant actually see the letter it's pretty weird advice for a counter fraud person to be giving.

Anyway I asked for clarification as to whether I has a legal obligation to respond to letter, acknowledging that I am fully comfortable with them passing any information that they have on me to the tax authorities because I am 100% certain that the single transaction I have ever used the app for (which was about a tenner by the way) was not taxable income - it was a friend sending me money because we'd gone out for dinner and id put the whole thing on my card and she had sent me her share via pingit.

Anyway I cant see the tax authorities wasting time on that one transaction, however what I would like to know is was the person from Barclays giving me false information when she told me a I had a personal legal liability to respond to that letter?

00ec25

jedi_jen wrote: »

Anyway I cant see the tax authorities wasting time on that one transaction, however what I would like to know is was the person from Barclays giving me false information when she told me a I had a personal legal liability to respond to that letter?

there is a very much longer thread it's a shame your search didn't pick up which discusses all possible nuances of this USA derived "requirement"

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5440564

jedi_jen

Thanks, no this hadn't come up when I was looking.

badmemory

The worst they can do is report you to HMRC as not knowing your tax residency. It is only supposed to apply to account holders. Well maybe the worst they could do is say you can't have an account with them, but I'm not sure that would be much of a punishment as you would have to wonder where they got there information from in the first place.

beckysheffield

Legit. I've got one and I live abroad.

sheramber

badmemory wrote: »

The worst they can do is report you to HMRC as not knowing your tax residency. It is only supposed to apply to account holders. Well maybe the worst they could do is say you can't have an account with them, but I'm not sure that would be much of a punishment as you would have to wonder where they got there information from in the first place.

The 'relevant tax authorities' are not HMRC. They are the IRS. - Internal Revenue Service of the USA