Hmrc penalties

MICHAEL512

I complete my wife self-assessment tax returns. She uses the Government Gateway on-line service and in 2014 she received a message stating self-assessment returns were no longer required after 2014/15 return was sent. However we did send in a 205/16 although not requested and subsequnetly she never logged on again and no longer sent in returns for 2016/17 and 2017/18.
Last week out of the blue she received by post a £300 penalty for late return of 2016/17. Upon checking the Government Gateway Self Assessment file she was horrified to find a further £1200 in penalties for late returns. Her tax little as it was had been paid under the PAYE scheme. We immediately filed the missing rerurns and have lodged an appeal against the penalties on the basis of 1) she was told not to lodge the return (although we now find a leter mssage stating she should) and 2) My wife never received any text or email alert stating there were messages for her from HMRC in the GG account.

Surely these penalties cannot be enforceable on the basis of HMRC just sending her a message on a GG account for which she has to remember to log-in to?

Hasbeen

I do self assessments every year regardless, once your in that's it unless you speak to HMRC because of changed circumstances.

If you do it every year you check your account/messages etc.

Would think they are enforceable as they did send notification to account.

Hope your appeal works but it the HMRC!

00ec25

MICHAEL512 wrote: »

and have lodged an appeal against the penalties on the basis of 1) she was told not to lodge the return (although we now find a leter mssage stating she should) and 2) My wife never received any text or email alert stating there were messages for her from HMRC in the GG account.

what written evidence do you have of her being removed from self assessment with effect from what date?

her inability to manage her own tax affairs and look at her own tax account on a regular basis to see what is there is not a defence against point 2

Dazed_and_confused

We immediately filed the missing rerurns

What was the outcome for each year i.e. what did each individual SA302 calculation show the end result as?

That would be a useful thing to know as far as your options are concerned.

And why did you file a return for 2015:16 without advising HMRC that their decision to say returns were not required post 2014:15 was wrong?

Sibbers123

Why did you file the returns. This may harm your ability to appeal.

You only have a duty to file a tax return if there is a liability to tax (i.e. if you are just an employee earning below £100k, you do not need to file a return and if HMRC request one, you could ask for that request to be removed stating the TMA 1970 s8)

The best thing to do is to call HMRC, hope you get a helpful HMRC officer and they can remove the penalties, but more often than not, you will have to put the appeaal in writing. With the amount at stake, it may be worth getting professional help.