HMRC interest statement incorrect

pecunianonolet

eskbanker said:

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

pecunianonolet said:

Yes, PSA is £500. The figures in the HMRC table detailed by institution and account comes to £498

The letter contained two sheets of paper. One was a cover letter, claiming when I contacted HMRC and why and that I have £571 of untaxed interest. The other is a double sided sheet with printed table of the reported interest. Each page has a small print on claiming 1of4, 2of4, etc. The page with the table had still space on one side to add more data, so I don't think something wasn't sent. 

Not following that to be honest.

You seem to be saying HMRC are telling you that their records show you received £498.  But then it changes to £571.

Confused.com!

HMRC are asserting that the total figure is £571 in the letter, but the attached listing of the detail sums to £498.

That's exactly it. Now add the fact that some interest has been incorrectly supplied by Atom by under declaring and as it seems a few institutions have not declared at all. HMRC now correcting my tax code, when their own calculation shows that I am actually within the PSA, so there should be technically no correction at all. 

If those shenanigans would be with a bank, pretty much anyone here would hand in a complaint to get it right and with the prospect of some decent compensation. With HMRC, I can now invest hours in getting it sorted, most likely to my disadvantage without any further gain. Or, I can keep quiet, wait for next year and should the figures be to my disadvantage, I'll ask them to correct it.

The point about IT software is very valid, imagine this example of mine and how many taxpayers might be in the same boat. This would amount to millions of people being incorrectly taxed. 

fonesaver said:

eskbanker said:

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

pecunianonolet said:

Yes, PSA is £500. The figures in the HMRC table detailed by institution and account comes to £498

The letter contained two sheets of paper. One was a cover letter, claiming when I contacted HMRC and why and that I have £571 of untaxed interest. The other is a double sided sheet with printed table of the reported interest. Each page has a small print on claiming 1of4, 2of4, etc. The page with the table had still space on one side to add more data, so I don't think something wasn't sent. 

Not following that to be honest.

You seem to be saying HMRC are telling you that their records show you received £498.  But then it changes to £571.

Confused.com!

HMRC are asserting that the total figure is £571 in the letter, but the attached listing of the detail sums to £498.

I have had a similar situation in the past. I found it easier to voluntarily complete a self assessment. Then you enter your total interest yourself rather than relying on HMRC's records which I found one year to be missing several payments of interest.

Did the missing payments appear in the following tax year or did they just got missed off and nothing ever happened?

fonesaver

pecunianonolet said:

eskbanker said:

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

pecunianonolet said:

Yes, PSA is £500. The figures in the HMRC table detailed by institution and account comes to £498

The letter contained two sheets of paper. One was a cover letter, claiming when I contacted HMRC and why and that I have £571 of untaxed interest. The other is a double sided sheet with printed table of the reported interest. Each page has a small print on claiming 1of4, 2of4, etc. The page with the table had still space on one side to add more data, so I don't think something wasn't sent. 

Not following that to be honest.

You seem to be saying HMRC are telling you that their records show you received £498.  But then it changes to £571.

Confused.com!

HMRC are asserting that the total figure is £571 in the letter, but the attached listing of the detail sums to £498.

That's exactly it. Now add the fact that some interest has been incorrectly supplied by Atom by under declaring and as it seems a few institutions have not declared at all. HMRC now correcting my tax code, when their own calculation shows that I am actually within the PSA, so there should be technically no correction at all. 

If those shenanigans would be with a bank, pretty much anyone here would hand in a complaint to get it right and with the prospect of some decent compensation. With HMRC, I can now invest hours in getting it sorted, most likely to my disadvantage without any further gain. Or, I can keep quiet, wait for next year and should the figures be to my disadvantage, I'll ask them to correct it.

The point about IT software is very valid, imagine this example of mine and how many taxpayers might be in the same boat. This would amount to millions of people being incorrectly taxed. 

fonesaver said:

eskbanker said:

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

pecunianonolet said:

Yes, PSA is £500. The figures in the HMRC table detailed by institution and account comes to £498

The letter contained two sheets of paper. One was a cover letter, claiming when I contacted HMRC and why and that I have £571 of untaxed interest. The other is a double sided sheet with printed table of the reported interest. Each page has a small print on claiming 1of4, 2of4, etc. The page with the table had still space on one side to add more data, so I don't think something wasn't sent. 

Not following that to be honest.

You seem to be saying HMRC are telling you that their records show you received £498.  But then it changes to £571.

Confused.com!

HMRC are asserting that the total figure is £571 in the letter, but the attached listing of the detail sums to £498.

I have had a similar situation in the past. I found it easier to voluntarily complete a self assessment. Then you enter your total interest yourself rather than relying on HMRC's records which I found one year to be missing several payments of interest.

Did the missing payments appear in the following tax year or did they just got missed off and nothing ever happened?

I phoned HMRC and told them about the missing interest and then changed to self assessment so I don't know whether they would have appeared next year.

fuzzzzy

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

I'm sure someone else posted saying the HMRC advisor on their case had only sent page 1 of what we're actually 2 pages of account details, maybe that is the case here?

I think that was me. I received my P800 in October and the amount of untaxed interest was under what I thought it should be. I rang HMRC up to tell them this and the untaxed interest they quoted on the phone was higher than on the P800 (they must have had a late reporting from one of the banks), but still did not exactly match my figures so I asked them to send me a breakdown. When the breakdown arrived it was missing a page so I could still not fully check it. I rang up again twice but lines were so busy that I did not even get put into a queue to wait - after the usual lengthy automatic messages it just cut me off. I've used online web chat with them in the past but that did not appear to be available either. As their calculations were slightly in my favour I just left it - I'd made the effort to correct it and was not going to put myself through any more hassle. Next year I will be submitting a self assessment.

TooMuchDetail

Even though this is an old post I thought I would add my experience which indicates mistakes are being made by banks in their interest certificates - the bank was another "challenger" bank.
I decided to calculate the interest payments I expect on my savings accounts so I would know ahead of time if I was going to exceed my personal allowance - for the 22-23 tax year I calculated ~£42 more interest than was on my tax certificate.
The interest payments are re-invested so the fact that my 23-24 calculated interest payment was < 1p different (on nearly £2k of payments) from that tax year's certificate suggests my calculations are correct.
Luckily I was within the tax allowance for 22-23 tax year, so no need for changes to my tax return - I wonder how HMRC would treat an error caused by the bank itself....?

eskbanker

TooMuchDetail said:

Even though this is an old post I thought I would add my experience which indicates mistakes are being made by banks in their interest certificates - the bank was another "challenger" bank.
I decided to calculate the interest payments I expect on my savings accounts so I would know ahead of time if I was going to exceed my personal allowance - for the 22-23 tax year I calculated ~£42 more interest than was on my tax certificate.
The interest payments are re-invested so the fact that my 23-24 calculated interest payment was < 1p different (on nearly £2k of payments) from that tax year's certificate suggests my calculations are correct.
Luckily I was within the tax allowance for 22-23 tax year, so no need for changes to my tax return - I wonder how HMRC would treat an error caused by the bank itself....?

It's obviously not unreasonable to expect savings providers to be able to issue accurate figures but in terms of whether or not your advance calculations are 'correct', surely the validation needs to be whether they matched with the actual interest paid during the tax year, rather than the number shown on a certificate?

masonic

TooMuchDetail said:

I wonder how HMRC would treat an error caused by the bank itself....?

That's easy. They would treat it as your error, because it is your responsibility to check the figures you submit are correct.

wiseonesomeofthetime

masonic said:

TooMuchDetail said:

I wonder how HMRC would treat an error caused by the bank itself....?

That's easy. They would treat it as your error, because it is your responsibility to check the figures you submit are correct.

But, unless you self-assess, you do not actually submit anything!

masonic

wiseonesomeofthetime said:

masonic said:

TooMuchDetail said:

I wonder how HMRC would treat an error caused by the bank itself....?

That's easy. They would treat it as your error, because it is your responsibility to check the figures you submit are correct.

But, unless you self-assess, you do not actually submit anything!

"Luckily I was within the tax allowance for 22-23 tax year, so no need for changes to my tax return - I wonder how HMRC would treat an error caused by the bank itself....?"

The you I was replying to did submit a tax return.