Income Tax Refund

MrsSmith322

Hi all
Desperately seeking advice as we are on our knees currently. Long story short one of my husbands ex employers was caught out for tax fraud and as a result due to them not paying employees tax forward, 1500 people had huge tax bills through.
Back in Oct 2021 our life savings were raided by HMRC to the tune of £10400. This was quickly rectified and we were promised a refund however we are still waiting. We have written complaints to HMRC, phoned complaints and made complaints online through the government gateway and all have been ignored. Every time we call we get told someone will call us back but nobody ever does. Or we get told to wait another 8 weeks or another 12 or 16. 

Is there anything we can do? The last update we had was that it had been sat and nothing had been done with it since October 2022 and she would call us back but never did. 

Is there anyone who can help us? We’ve almost lost everything we had to cancel our wedding losing all of our deposits and my husband has been off work for 15 months with cancer, we have children to feed we so badly need this money back but they just won’t give it to us.

Any any advice would be appreciated I don’t know where else to turn.

TIA

comeandgo

Have you tried your MP?  They may not understand the tax situation but they can push HMRC for an answer.

MrsSmith322

Hiya yes we’ve sent 2 emails to him over the last 2 weeks but not had any response yet. I guess they’re busy people but hopefully they can help a little. 

Marcon

I rarely think that going to the press is a good idea, but in this case words fail me...what a way to treat anyone, let alone someone who has cancer. I'd be tempted to try a letter to someone like Tony Hetherington https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/experts/article-11875459/TONY-HETHERINGTON-HSBCs-ban-far-safeguard.html or possibly Paul Lewis at Radio 4's Moneybox moneybox@bbc.co.uk

If you've not yet done so, make a formal complaint about the treatment you've receive from HMRC https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/complain-about-hmrc

You have my heartfelt sympathy, although I hope one of the ideas above might yield something rather more concrete!

MrsSmith322

Hi yeah I contacted a few newspapers but I’ve not contacted either of the above so I’ll try that Thankyou!

TBagpuss

I'd agree that contacting your MP is a good idea - do they hold a surgery in the constituancy at all? That might be a good option if you haven't heard back from them. 

I would agree with making a formal complaint using the HMRC Complaints process. It doesn't sound as though you would normally follow the appeals process since they seem to have decided in your favor but failed to implement the decision, but it might be worth looking at that process with a view to escalating to the tribunal simply as it may trigger someone actually doing something! 

https://www.theguardian.com/money/series/bachelor-and-brignall-consumer-champions is another part of the media to try if haven't already

MrsSmith322

Thankyou for your advice He’s got a number to contact the mps office if they don’t get back to him soon. 

Dazed_and_C0nfused

When he does contact them I would suggest you explain it as clearly as possible.

HMRC very rarely raid people's life savings, they only do that for serious tax evasion so presumably something else actually happened.

It will just help keep things to the point and not get muddled with half stories.

MrsSmith322

Thanks I think he’s told them everything. It was very serious tax fraud that the company were committing, their offices were shut and computers seized etc. The reason they emptied our savings is because they had been writing to him for a few months telling him he owed tax but they had been sending the letters to the wrong address so we had no idea. So they just took the money then said oh no sorry you dont actually owe us anything and here we are still waiting to get it back 🤷🏻‍♀️

MrsSmith322

I dont know the ins and outs of it all I know is 1500 people were affected. The company was basically taking their tax money each month and showing it on their payslips but not registering it properly on the system or paying it forward so all these people got stung for not paying tax. They had been doing this since the start of the covid pandemic so it built up over a few years. His boss had £16000 taken from his savings.

I can assure you he is no way involved in any kind of tax fraud or evasion. He went to the tax office in Nottingham back in 2021 along with several other employees to give a statement to aid their investigation into this company, he provided all wage slips etc and HMRC have admitted they took the money in error, it was showing as a tax overpayment on his tax account at the time that they said it had been processed for repayment.

I am coming here for advice to try and get this pushed through, not accusations that my seriously ill husband has been committing any kind of criminal offence.

MrsSmith322

Just to let everyone know (including the poster making tax fraud accusations) that writing to our MP paid off and after having to escalate the complaint to tier 2 within HMRC, we have now had confirmation a cheque is in the post for the full amount owed plus £2k interest 🙌🏼
Anyone facing issues with tax refunds I would recommend writing to your MP it’s taken 2 years but we got there eventually.