HMRC lost the money i paid for NICs?

slopemaster

Hello, hoping for some advice please.

My OH was self-employed (with low turnover below £6000) until recently.

He used to pay class 2 NICs until sometime in 2015 HMRC just stopped taking them without telling us. It was sometime before I noticed, but when I did I phoned up and they told me I could pay on line - which I did - and they wd correct the records. Also in future I had to tick a box on his self-assessment form. I did this, but they didnt include the class 2 with the tax so I phoned again. 20/1/17 They said to pay £145.60 online, which I did.

Then recently we received a bill for class 2 contributions for 2015-16 (part year) and 2016-17 and 2017-18. So they havent taken account of the payments we made for 2015-16 and 2016-17.

I phoned them, with the proof of paying the £145.60 for 2016-17.
(I printed out the receipt, luckily, which says "received by HMRC" and gives the amount, and the correct UTR. They werent interested that I had proof, just said they never received it and I should contact my bank.
I can't do that as the account is now closed.


So, I am going to write to them, asking for the bill to be corrected, with a copy of the proof that part of it has already been paid.

Ought to be straightforward, but I am wondering.....
On the phone he also said some weird stuff about paying contributions abroad - which isn't the case, and I told him so, but again he wasn't interested.

Is there anything else I can/should do????
Thanks

antonic

slopemaster wrote: »

Hello, hoping for some advice please.

My OH was self-employed (with low turnover below £6000) until recently.

He used to pay class 2 NICs until sometime in 2015 HMRC just stopped taking them without telling us. It was sometime before I noticed, but when I did I phoned up and they told me I could pay on line - which I did - and they wd correct the records. Also in future I had to tick a box on his self-assessment form. I did this, but they didnt include the class 2 with the tax so I phoned again. 20/1/17 They said to pay £145.60 online, which I did.

Then recently we received a bill for class 2 contributions for 2015-16 (part year) and 2016-17 and 2017-18. So they havent taken account of the payments we made for 2015-16 and 2016-17.

I phoned them, with the proof of paying the £145.60 for 2016-17.
(I printed out the receipt, luckily, which says "received by HMRC" and gives the amount, and the correct UTR. They werent interested that I had proof, just said they never received it and I should contact my bank.
I can't do that as the account is now closed.


So, I am going to write to them, asking for the bill to be corrected, with a copy of the proof that part of it has already been paid.

Ought to be straightforward, but I am wondering.....
On the phone he also said some weird stuff about paying contributions abroad - which isn't the case, and I told him so, but again he wasn't interested.

Is there anything else I can/should do????
Thanks

First question I have to ask is how do you make the payment ?
BACS/FPS, Debit Card ?

The second question is to which HMRC account did you make the payment ? (Sort Code and Account Number )

Then ring HMRC again and demand that they run a payment trace.
They will ask you for :
1) Method of Payment
2) Date payment cleared his account
3) Sort Code and account number of sending account (his)
4) Sort code and account number of HMRC account you made the payment to.
5) Reference number quoted when making the payment.

If HMRC still cant find the payment they will come back and ask for more info.

Hope this helps.

slopemaster

Thanks v much, that is a great help and I will do that tomorrow.

Payment was made by debit card (from a closed a/c that we still have the details of),
but via the HMRC website so I do not have a specific sort code and account number it was paid to, only a Worldpay reference about 40 digits long.

sheramber

It sounds like you made the payments to the self assessment account.

National Insurance contributions are paid to the Contributions Agency. Debit card is not listed as a means of payment to the Contributions Agency

https://www.gov.uk/pay-class-2-national-insurance

dori2o

Can OP confirm why they are paying Class 2 NIC's seperately to the tax/nic's usually calculated via the tax return?

There are only a few reasons why NIC class 2 would be due and not calculated as part of the tax return.

maisie_cat

sheramber wrote: »

It sounds like you made the payments to the self assessment account.

National Insurance contributions are paid to the Contributions Agency. Debit card is not listed as a means of payment to the Contributions Agency

https://www.gov.uk/pay-class-2-national-insurance

Is that only if not paid as part of the self assessment process? I'm worried mine are not being allocated correctly now!

dori2o

maisie_cat wrote: »

Is that only if not paid as part of the self assessment process? I'm worried mine are not being allocated correctly now!

The gov.uk link in your quoted post lists the reasons why you would need to make seperate payments. If you are a UK resident and self employed then NIC Class 2 contributions are now always collected as part of the self assessment process, and paid to the self assessment account.

slopemaster

They were paid separately because, although i ticked the box on the SA form to pay them voluntarily, they did not include them in the tax bill they sent.

So I rang up and queried this, and they told me to pay this amount online and they would sort out the paperwork.

It now looks like they told me to pay them to the wrong account and never did anything about getting the payment allocated to NI!

But, even so, they are saying there is no sign of this payment AT ALL.
Surely if it went into the gen tax account it should be sitting there showing as an overpayment of tax? It was definitely tagged with the correct UTR.

I phoned again today and was told there was NO payment to any HMRC account for OH on that date, and no payment for that amount on any date at all - end of story!

So, I have sent off a letter with a copy of the receipt asking them to sort it out.

slopemaster

Oh, I just looked at that link and it says you can pay by direct debit!!!
All this trouble started in the first place because they just stopped taking the DD. And when I realised and phoned them, they said you couldnt pay that way any more!

But yes, the payment was made to the main self-assessment account, not to contributions agency.
But I swear I did exactly what the person on the phone said.
I remember asking at the time how they would know to allocate it to NI and he said he would sort it out at that end....
I feel quite angry now, they seem to have been talking complete rubbish.

Just hope the money can be traced, as of course they will deny telling me to do this!

Incidentally, OH does not meet any of the cases listed where it is NOT paid through SA.
But I have a copy of the form where we asked to pay it; then they didn't include it in the tax bill

slopemaster

But the person on the phone yesterday said something about OH paying contributions abroad from 2015 to 2017. I told him this was wrong but he was uninterested in correcting it. I would have actually thought he was looking at someone else's record, except that the amount of tax he mentioned for last year was exactly right.