The Paye People...... scam ???

BigStevie76

has anyone heard of this company?
Most of my colleagues have had pay outs from hmrc, through the Paye People, from £3000 to £15000.
It seemed to good to be true and it now seems that might be the case?
One of my colleagues has been told by hmrc that this is a scam and that hmrc will pursue the individuals for reimbursement but not the Paye People!?
Does anyone know about this or have any info ? 
Tia

[Deleted User]

Not a scam - just one of the many organisations out there who will happily take a large proportion of any refund in fees when you could easily have made the claim yourself. ‘Most of your colleagues claims’sounds a bit of a stretch! 

Dazed_and_C0nfused

One of my colleagues has been told by hmrc that this is a scam and that hmrc will pursue the individuals for reimbursement but not the Paye People!?

I have no idea if it is a scam or not but if HMRC decide to investigate someone's claim or tax return then it is the individual who has to pay HMRC.  After all the individual is ultimately  responsible for their own tax affairs. 

If a claim is genuine then there is nothing to be concerned about but if it is inflated or not actually valid then the individual will get the tax bill.

For example say a return is filed showing a refund of £3,000.  HMRC issue a refund and they then have a year to decide whether to investigate the return.

If they investigate and decide no refund is due the individual has to repay £3,000 (possibly plus interest and penalties).

If the PAYE People took say £720 (20% + VAT) do you think they will contribute their share to the £3,000+ that needs to be paid to HMRC?

At the end of the day if you are on PAYE they aren't doing anything you couldn't normally do yourself (if there is in fact a valid claim to be made).

Grumpy_chap

BigStevie76 said:

Most of my colleagues have had pay outs from hmrc, through the Paye People, from £3000 to £15000.

These are large tax refunds for anyone purely on PAYE to accrue, and that is quite difficult for an individual with solely one source of PAYE income.  There are ways, though, such as discrepancy in reporting of company car / fuel benefits to make this sort of level of difference. 

If The PAYE People are working correctly, for every one of your colleagues for whom they identified a refund in the range £3k to £15k, you would logically expect they would identify another colleague who underpaid by the same magnitude...

I am not sure how The PAYE People work but I would expect that they send a questionnaire filled in by the individual and then prepare the tax calculation and tax return based upon the information provided by the individual, who gets to sign they agree it is correct before The PAYE People submit anything to HMRC.  So, The PAYE People are protected against any claims if the information the individual declared as correct turns out to be incorrect.  I am sure it will say that in the T's&C's.

Mickey666

It's not a scam, it's just an unnecessary service for something you can easily manage yourself.  If this sort of thing WAS a scam, every accountant in the land would be shaking in their boots!

I'm sure an electrician would change a fuse in your home if you didn't want to do it yourself - would it be a scam to be charged for such a simple thing?

Pennywise

Mickey666 said:

It's not a scam, it's just an unnecessary service for something you can easily manage yourself.  If this sort of thing WAS a scam, every accountant in the land would be shaking in their boots!

I'm sure an electrician would change a fuse in your home if you didn't want to do it yourself - would it be a scam to be charged for such a simple thing?

The "scam" is that some tax refund firms artificially inflate the claim, i.e. lie.  The refund is then a lot more than is correctly due.  Firm takes their cut and pays the taxpayer the balance.  A few months later HMRC do a check on the figures, discover the claim was overinflated and want the money back from the taxpayer.  Genuine accountants don't indulge in that behaviour.

Clairewill76

SCAM 100% oh you’ll get your money, well some of it as they keep a portion. Then a few months later HRMC say ‘you weren’t entitled to that money, we want it back’.  You tell them HMRC paid The PAYE PEOPLE & only got some of it, and HMRC say ‘oh yes, we can’t find them. They don’t answer phones or emails so you must pay it all back now. Then debt gets passed to companies who want to take you to court. Do not listen to the other comments on here. They probably got the money & HMRC will be into them soon. 😭

flaneurs_lobster

Clairewill76 said:

They probably got the money & HMRC will be into them soon. 😭

Let's hope so, you're replying to a thread that's 3.5 years old.