HMRC savings account error

sheen280

I phoned HMRC today to change my tax code around as I have 2 jobs and I seemed to be paying a lot of tax every payday. I pay by PAYE. When talking to the adviser about my allowances it was flagged up that I'm paying interest on savings over the basic rate £1000 allowance. When she looked closely she asked me about 2 savings accounts belonging to the same bank as well as my current account. I only have one savings account. This 'extra' phantom savings account had an estimated interest of £500 which was pushing me over my allowance. She advised me to phone the savings bank to see if it was a dormant account I'd opened years ago.

I phoned the savings bank and asked them. They confirmed I had one account but the 4 digits of the 'extra' account I was given were apparently a finacle number (which I've never heard of). 

I phoned HMRC (for the third time that day) to discuss the matter again. They had to fill in a form to close the non-existent account down, which took over an hour all in all. 

I've been paying £500 in extra tax for this amount I don't have since my tax code was generated. As I pay PAYE and I know that HMRC can see my earnings directly, I didn't realise that this could happen. They are saying it was a fault with the bank's information and the bank say that it's an error with HMRC.

I just wondered if anyone had heard of a similar error and I wanted to warn people to check their tax codes carefully.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

sheen280 said:

I phoned HMRC today to change my tax code around as I have 2 jobs and I seemed to be paying a lot of tax every payday. I pay by PAYE. When talking to the adviser about my allowances it was flagged up that I'm paying interest on savings over the basic rate £1000 allowance. When she looked closely she asked me about 2 savings accounts belonging to the same bank as well as my current account. I only have one savings account. This 'extra' phantom savings account had an estimated interest of £500 which was pushing me over my allowance. She advised me to phone the savings bank to see if it was a dormant account I'd opened years ago.

I phoned the savings bank and asked them. They confirmed I had one account but the 4 digits of the 'extra' account I was given were apparently a finacle number (which I've never heard of). 

I phoned HMRC (for the third time that day) to discuss the matter again. They had to fill in a form to close the non-existent account down, which took over an hour all in all. 

I've been paying £500 in extra tax for this amount I don't have since my tax code was generated. As I pay PAYE and I know that HMRC can see my earnings directly, I didn't realise that this could happen. They are saying it was a fault with the bank's information and the bank say that it's an error with HMRC.

I just wondered if anyone had heard of a similar error and I wanted to warn people to check their tax codes carefully.

I'm not sure what a finacle number is either.

Do you mean the bank have used different account numbers from one year to another?

For example,

Nat West reported say £500 for 2022-23 with account number 12345678
HMRC will currently be using that as an actual amount for 2022-23 and estimate for 2023-24 and 2024-25

Nat West reported say £650 for 2023-24 with say account number 012345678
HMRC are currently using that as an actual amount for 2023-24 and an estimate for 2024-25

And at the moment HMRC are waiting for the actual details for account number 12345678.  But in reality this is what Nat West have reported using account number 012345678??

eskbanker

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

sheen280 said:

I phoned the savings bank and asked them. They confirmed I had one account but the 4 digits of the 'extra' account I was given were apparently a finacle number (which I've never heard of). 

I'm not sure what a finacle number is either.

According to Google's AI:

Finacle

A cloud-based banking platform developed by Infosys that helps financial institutions modernize their core banking capabilities. It's used by banks in over 100 countries and serves more than 1 billion customers.

so if the savings bank uses Finacle software, the term presumably enters the working vernacular for its staff, even though it's meaningless to customers.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

eskbanker said:

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

sheen280 said:

I phoned the savings bank and asked them. They confirmed I had one account but the 4 digits of the 'extra' account I was given were apparently a finacle number (which I've never heard of). 

I'm not sure what a finacle number is either.

According to Google's AI:

Finacle

A cloud-based banking platform developed by Infosys that helps financial institutions modernize their core banking capabilities. It's used by banks in over 100 countries and serves more than 1 billion customers.

so if the savings bank uses Finacle software, the term presumably enters the working vernacular for its staff, even though it's meaningless to customers.

New one on me!

It does seem like the bank may have inadvertently confused matters here then.

I phoned the savings bank and asked them. They confirmed I had one account but the 4 digits of the 'extra' account I was given were apparently a finacle number (which I've never heard of). 

sheen280

Yes- new to me too.

But however the error happened, whether it was by the bank informing HMRC or vice versa, the result was a phantom extra account that had a non-existent interest amount of 'estimated' £500 that I had to pay for through my tax code.

Glad I found out about it!

eskbanker

sheen280 said:

Yes- new to me too.

But however the error happened, whether it was by the bank informing HMRC or vice versa, the result was a phantom extra account that had a non-existent interest amount of 'estimated' £500 that I had to pay for through my tax code.

Glad I found out about it!

Maybe worth naming the savings bank, on the off chance that this resonates with others?

dustyroad46

This also happened to me, a phantom extra account on HMRC.  Found out that my Marcus bank account interest was shown correctly but there was further interest for the same amount which was incorrect. Turns out that HMRC had me down with two accounts, one named as Marcus and the other Goldman Sachs which are one and the same. The Marcus bank account number was correct but The Goldman Sachs number on HMRC was a finacle number and HMRC took this as another account.

pecunianonolet

Had a duplicate account myself and so does the OH, seems to be a pattern so always request your BBSI and double check.