HMRC mistake

rugby8753

Hello, newbie here. I’m just looking for some advice about what to do about an HMRC class 4 NI restriction that was not applied correctly by the HMRC on my last tax return (they have admitted this). 

I do my tax return through a company who deal with medical locums and the different range of jobs we tend to do. I work one job which is paid PAYE and the rest are self assessed (sorry if I am not explaining this properly but I’m really not tax or financially savvy hence using a company for my tax return). 

Anyway, this year the HMRC incorrectly assessed the class 4 NI (my tax advisor said it’s because they didn’t count the NI I have already automatically paid through my PAYE job). They have admitted that they have made a mistake and it is going through the process of being retracted but my tax advisor has told me this could take up to 44 weeks. In the meantime I am getting monthly letters from HMRC demanding the extra and adding interest daily. 

I have never had this before and hate receiving letters like this. 

I am wondering if I should just pay it and then apply for a refund when it is finally sorted or leave it? If I repaid it would that be showing the HMRC I think I am in the wrong? And if I pay would I also get the interest accrued back in the refund? 

Any thoughts/advice would be helpful. 

And please, if you feel I am in the wrong then I don’t want any nastiness. I have done my tax return through a large tax company and the HMRC office dealing with this have acknowledged they are in the wrong but apparently need to send it higher up the chain for it to be rectified because the person on the phone didn’t know how to do this. They have also admitted that I will continue to get these letters until this is sorted because of lack of communication between departments. 

Many thanks 

mybestattempt

My immediate advice would be to pay the correct amount, if any, which is due and ask for collection the balance to be postponed untiI HMRC get around to correcting their mistake.

Bookworm105

obviously it would be better if they had admitted the mistake in writing?

there is no right or wrong answer to your question. You are happy they have admitted their error. There is indeed no way they can defer debt chasing due to awaiting an internal correction to make it go away.
Therefore either you get used to nasty letters which you ignore on the strength of it is their error and it will go away 
Or you pay up now to stop the letters but can expect to wait a long time for the refund to be processed.

Your choice: do without money until refund comes but have no nasty letters, or keep your cash to yourself and get used to letters.

mybestattempt

Given C4 NICs is a self assessment charge, I think this is the type of situation where an informal standover of the amount HMRC actually accept is not due would be order:

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/self-assessment-manual/sam11010