HMRC Self Assessment Penalty 3 Years Late

[tleefox]

Cacking myself a bit.

Out of the blue, I've had a self assessment notice of penalty assessment through today demanding £100 for submitting my self assessment late for the year end 5th April 2012.

Now, firstly I'm completely anal about anything financial and cannot believe if I had known I needed to do the self assessment in this year I would have forgotten about it. The reason I am concerned is that we moved house in 2011, so it's feasible that I may have missed something coming out in the post, but surely I can't rack up 3 years of fees and interest without some form of notice or reminder from HMRC before now? Reading on the net I'm concerned that I may owe them £££ for something I didn't necessarily know about?

[tleefox]

No and no - I was not self employed at the time.

For the year ending April 2011 I had to do a self assessment as my work expenses ran to over £2.5k, which apparently means you have to do self assessment. I have not had any self assessment requests since.

Letter is dated 24th Feb this year.

[tleefox]

silentbrown said:

Are you self-employed, or a (powerfully built) company director? Basic rules about when you need to submit a return are here, but typically once you've submitted one, they then require you to submit one every year...

https://www.gov.uk/self-assessment-tax-returns/who...

Neither I'm afraid.

Out of the blue one year I had a notification from the HMRC that I was required to submit a self assessment - I did this well in time and have copies of what I submitted to them for that year. Now that I think about it I even have a vague recollection of them sending me a letter saying I would no longer be required to do self assessments.

Never since have I had anything asking me to complete a self assessment.

Edited by tleefox on Wednesday 4th March 20:07

[tleefox]

silentbrown said:

Updated:
Sounds like it could be they asked you to submit a return but didn't have the right address. Any reason why they've suddenly got it right now? Change of job, maybe?

Edited by silentbrown on Wednesday 4th March 20:09

I have just changed jobs, so this seems like a probability.

[tleefox]

Thanks for the help and pointers thus far guys.

Just got off the phone to the pre-programmed "computer says no" lady on the helpline. Summary of events is that I was required to submit a self assessment as my expenses for the year ending April 2012 were in excess of £2500, which I cannot confirm but probably agree with.

I am 100% confident I never received the SA notice - as per my previous statement I am completely anal about anything financial and tax related so if I had received it I would have done it. She also said that they had a record of various letters sent back to them as we were no longer at the address they had on file.

As it stands at the minute I have racked up penalties of £1600 plus the £100 late payment charge - her advice was to get the self assessment in and go from there.

What do we think my chances of contesting the fines are? Surely in the intervening 3 years they would have picked up my new address from P11d's, P60's etc, or is it just my problem, end of sports?

[tleefox]

I've just sat down and written a timeline of all of this based on what I know, and it doesn't make sense to me.

When I spoke to the woman on the phone earlier she said that the reason I was flagged up was that I had submitted a form P87d for tax relief on employment expenses, which is true. As the amount I was claiming tax relief on was over £2500 (N.B - for that year only!) she said they wrote to me telling me I needed to do a self assessment, which based on the form I have received would have been for the year ending 5th April 2012.

Where I get confused is that we moved house in October 2011 - the P87d form cannot be submitted until after the end of the financial year you are claiming for, so in this case after April 2012, so the P87d I submitted would have had our new address on it anyway.

So confused!

[tleefox]

silentbrown said:

see here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...

HMRC said:

Reasonable excuse examples
What we may accept as a reasonable excuse
...
• You did not receive the tax return or letter telling you to complete a tax return – we usually know if you did not because it is sent back undelivered.
...

Woman I spoke to said they knew I had not received the correspondence as they had been sent back - if I have underpaid tax I have no problem paying it back - what grates me is that they can allow you to accumulate £2k worth of fines and just sit there and say "tough st."

[tleefox]

silentbrown said:

I think the "notes" I linked to say that not receiving the request to complete a return may well be a "reasonable excuse" to appeal against the penalty. It's a pain you have to go through that process, b ut...

I had mis-read your quotes - having re-read them that does appear to be the case.

I've now had a notice through for the £1500 of fees - hopefully it's an automatic thing and they're trying their luck! I've now done the "outstanding" self assessment and it actually turns out they owe me £500. Few phone calls next week I think!