HMRC - Lack of communication and income tax due.

bendipa

eskbanker: Many thanks for that. If someone could have done that 14 months ago, it might have saved me a heap of hassle. This is the first time I've ever failed to register with a website in all the years I've been online. I still haven't given up getting online yet, but I think I'm fighting a losing battle with HMRC, or registration with any government department come to that.

If my next attempt at contact with HMRC fails I'll make use of that download, though it's expensive to print out at my local library, then send by post. And of course there's no guarantee once I've sent it off that it will get to the right person, or even if it does they'll accept it. I've decided I'm going to contact my MP in the near future about all of this nonsense if things go down that route.

eskbanker

Received another self-assessment request for 2024-25

By what date do you need to submit this?

bendipa

I think by October last year, but that's the whole problem. I've never been able to login, and communication by letter is ignored, and trying to speak to a human being on my (then) landline phone phone has so far proved fruitless as well as costing me a few quid. I even took the trouble to visit their Croydon office last year (20 miles away), just to get hold of a frigg*n' tax return form, but the security refused to help or let me see anyone. But I have paid the tax for that year, and obviously kept record of income.

eskbanker

OK, so just to check, was the sequence of events that in early 2025 they sent you their assessment of your tax liability for 2023/24, and then in April 2025 (?) wrote to you to instruct you to start self-assessing, initially for the 2024/25 tax year that had just finished, and ever since then you've been going round in circles with them trying to find a way of actually doing it? Presumably they'll expect you to self-assess for 2025/26 now too, have you received a letter for that yet?

bendipa

Yes. I first received what's called a 'simple assessment' early last year for 2023-24. It was slightly overstated due to the State Pension receipts for that year, which were slightly less than what HMRC estimated. That's when I first tried to register online but as already explained I came up against a brick wall. So I appealed by letter, paid over what I believed was the correct tax due, and never heard another word from them. But I continued to try contacting them to register online, as well as asking for a tax return form for for 2024-25. But to no avail.

Then a letter arrived last week asking me for a tax return for 2024-25. I had been expecting another 'simple assessment' form from them, but not this time. Again, I tried contacting HMRC by phone, and well you know the rest. So yesterday I sent them another letter explaining the situation regarding registration and again asked them to send me a 2024-25 tax return form. I've not received any demand for a tax return for 2025-26 yet.

I am going to attempt one more phone call early next week. And should that fail then I might consider seeing my MP about the situation. From previous experience a few decades ago I got my local MP involved regarding the Inland Revenue (as they were then called) about a different issue when they ignored my letters. It was amazing how quickly they responded and resolved my situation with a letter of apology once that happened.

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Dazed_and_C0nfused

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81968839#Comment_81968839

Before you get even more confused you might want to reconsider things with regard to the State Pension.

You are not taxed on how much you received, it is the amount you were entitled to that matters.

Plenty of people post on here and the pensions board thinking HMRC get State Pension wrong in end of tax year calculations but in the vast majority of cases the amount is correct. It's the person receiving the State Pension who has misunderstood how it's taxed.

bendipa

I'm not confused about anything here and I disagree. There are different levels of state pension according to what you paid in whilst employed You are taxed on what income you receive regardless of how that income was earned/paid, not what HMRC thinks your income should be. That's a ridiculous assumption. And if they want to challenge me about that, let them.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81968866#Comment_81968866

It's what the tax legislation states and it's based on your personal entitlement, just not what is physically paid into your bank account in a given tax year.

It's covered in one of HMRC's manuals here.

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim75700#taxable-amount

eskbanker

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81968182#Comment_81968182

I think by October last year, but that's the whole problem

Then a letter arrived last week asking me for a tax return for 2024-25

That's what I was trying to ascertain - if you've only just been asked last week to self-assess for 2024/25 then what submission deadline have you been given in that letter?

jem16

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81968866#Comment_81968866

You are confused though but more importantly you are wrong and HMRC are correct according to the legislation.

Yes everyone’s state pension is based on their own contributions but that’s nothing to do with how it’s taxed. Unlike most other income streams which are taxable on receipt of payment, the state pension is taxable on when you are entitled to receive that payment - ie weekly.

So for those people paid 4 weekly there is a point as one tax year ends and another tax year begins where you’re entitled to have received your state pension but payment isn’t received until the next tax year.

HMRC will usually use 1 week of old rate plus 51 weeks of new rate for those reaching SPA on or after 6th April 2010. That’s what is used in your tax code certainly. However tax returns tend to pre-populate with 52 weeks of new rate which I always change as a matter of principle. For those reaching SOA before 6th April it can be 52 weeks of new rate or 1/51.