Fine - Late Self Assement

Daveeeb

Hi

Looking for some advice - my wife was a self employed holistic therapist and as such used to complete tax returns each year. 
Note that she completed each of her 4-5 prior to this issue returns within 2 days of end of tax year.

Due to Covid she obviously had to stop working and she contacted HMRC (by phone) in July 2020 (which they confirmed they logged) and was told he self assessments were on hold and she was not required to complete.

She recently accessed her HMRC app to check on her NI/pension contributions and found that she has notifications of £3k of fines for late self assessment returns ! (20/21, 21/22, 22/,23)

She was told to complete returns and write an appeal - we completed returns online immediately (all nil as she hasn't be able to work in massage since Covid) and wrote a letter.

We moved house during covid but had a postal re-direct and updated all parties to new address.

HMRC said they sent 2 letters but we never received any correspondence etc

She is panicking as to the large value of fine ! -

Do late return fines get cancelled and would above support any cancellations ?

Regards





 

Grumpy_chap

Did she receive written confirmation back in 2020 that SE was no longer required?  How did HMRC "confirm they logged" this notification of no longer being self-employed?

As an aside, why has she still not been able to return to work in massage?  Many massage venues re-opened a god while back now.

Daveeeb

No written confirmation as far as we can remember but when she contacted HMRC about the penalties / fines last week she was told they could see that she rang in July 2020.

She has not returned to massage due to multiple reasons (covid lockdowns / moved location (lost client base) / started a PAYE contract job etc)

eskbanker

Daveeeb said:

Due to Covid she obviously had to stop working and she contacted HMRC (by phone) in July 2020 (which they confirmed they logged) and was told he self assessments were on hold and she was not required to complete. 

Daveeeb said:

No written confirmation as far as we can remember but when she contacted HMRC about the penalties / fines last week she was told they could see that she rang in July 2020.

There's a big difference between logging the fact that there was a call, and recording its content, so it may be worth submitting a subject access request to ascertain exactly what they recorded as being said, otherwise it's a just a case of two differing recollections of a verbal discussion.  Even if she was convinced during the early months of the pandemic that she wouldn't be returning to work by the following April, it would seem odd that HMRC would confirm so early in the tax year that there'd be no need to self-assess after the end of it?

Make a subject access request to HMRC - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)