i simply don't believe the inland revenue

[m3jappa]

I'll be honest i am late paying my income tax, yes i know its wrong but i,ll be honest i find it a bit silly that no longer do they send a bill out they expect you to pay it as and when which i can live with.

Now i was going to pay it one day this week, the moneys there, i just havent got round to it and have put it off because they are so difficult to get hold of.

Today i receive a 'FINAL DEMAND' In nice big red letters. ? I havent even had a first demand. Couple that with the letters dated the 16th of Feb so its taken 2 weeks to arrive and finally i now owe an extra 5% (which is quite a bit extra) .

I thought it was just interest on the amount owed not a 'surcharge' ?

So for the last 2 hours i have been trying to call them but it just cuts off saying they have a high call demand, which doesnt surprise me as i bet i,m not the only 'criminal' whoes paying their tax late. No waiting system at all so i have to keep trying.

Right back to the phone now.

[anonymous-user]

Why don't you just pay it online.

[Gaspode]

I also received an Income Tax Final Demand today. They seem to have overlooked the fact that I paid my due tax in full via the web on December 17th last year, at the same time that I submitted my tax return. I have the receipt from HMRC to prove it.

There is no email address to respond to, and when I ring the number I get an automated message telling me they are experiencing an unusually high number of calls, and are unable to answer.

Tossers.

Edited by Gaspode on Wednesday 4th March 19:58

[KANEIT]

Gaspode said:

I also received an Income Tax Final Demand today. They seem to have overlooked the fact that I paid my due tax in full via the web on December 17th last year, at the same time that I submitted my tax return. I have the receipt from HMRC to prove it.

There is no email address to respond to, and when I ring the number I get an automated message telling me they are expereincing an unusually high number of calls, and are unable to answer.

Tossers.

So it's not just me then? I have the exact same problem. I got the 'final demand' a week after it was dated and that was the only communication I have received from HMRC. I set up a direct debit and they lost that too. Am still trying to get through to my tax office.

ETA I filed my return on time and arranged the debit payments immediately

Edited by KANEIT on Wednesday 4th March 20:04

[m3jappa]

I finally just got through and was told no surcharge has been added yet. So has it or hasnt it because the letter says i have.

Useless!

I actually am quite paranoid about paying them money for reasons as stated above.....

They do not know what they are doing and it concerns me, theres so many different departments, all of which deal with several different things.

[jeebus]

I had a run in with them useless morons a couple of years ago, paid everything i owed, then 6 months later I got a bill off them for three grand. That three grand then turned into just over seven grand,they sent baliffs round to my house twice and after many letters and phone calls and a few arguments with my acountant it turned out they owed me £2200. It was the inland revenue that cocked up,they also gave me an extra £21 in intrest iirc, but when you owe them money jesus wept they soon trump the charges up,plus the people that work there are on the most absolutely useless.

[jeebus]

m3jappa said:

They do not know what they are doing and it concerns me, theres so many different departments, all of which deal with several different things.

I think you have just hit the nail on the head with that statement.

[Scraggles]

got an £850 bill from them, they reckoned from a couple of years ago was self employed, phoned them up and told them it all stopped sometime in 2000 or so, made up a date and declared 1st april was the date it had....

bill was cancelled

[Simpo Two]

They move the onus of responsibility from themselves to you. Result - less work/cost for them and more fines for you if you screw up.

[jeebus]

Simpo Two said:

They move the onus of responsibility from themselves to you. Result - less work/cost for them and more fines for you if you screw up.

Exactly,when i called them the guy said "as far as we are concerned it's not our problem, its yours" so i said "what exactly do i owe you money for", and this is the bit really boiled my piss, the guy says "thats for you to find out as I said before its no longer our concern." Jesus christ it was like talking to a brick wall.You cant just ask somebody for £3000 and not tell them why you owe you that to them.

[m3jappa]

The stuff an adults nightmares are made of.

[Eric Mc]

jeebus said:

Simpo Two said:

They move the onus of responsibility from themselves to you. Result - less work/cost for them and more fines for you if you screw up.

Exactly,when i called them the guy said "as far as we are concerned it's not our problem, its yours" so i said "what exactly do i owe you money for", and this is the bit really boiled my piss, the guy says "thats for you to find out as I said before its no longer our concern." Jesus christ it was like talking to a brick wall.You cant just ask somebody for £3000 and not tell them why you owe you that to them.

Who were you talking to, the Collector's Office or the Inspector's Office? The Collector does not know nor care how the liability has arisen. He only knows how much you owe and when it was due. If you have a dispute with the amount, you need to talk to the Inspectore. If you cannot pay it by the due dates, you still need to talk to the Inspector. They will accomodate staged payments if you are having cashflow problems.

The system is not called Self Assessment for nothing. It is the taxpayer's respnsibility to know their tax liabilities and pay them by the set dates.

[thinfourth2]

It will be so much easier when GB gets his way and we just pay all money to them

[m3jappa]

thinfourth2 said:

It will be so much easier when GB gets his way and we just pay all money to them

Depending on how much you earn then hes already got half.

Which is nice.

[catso]

And they stopped sending pre-paid envelopes for VAT returns - bastids......

[Vron]

Eric Mc said:

jeebus said:

Simpo Two said:

They move the onus of responsibility from themselves to you. Result - less work/cost for them and more fines for you if you screw up.

Exactly,when i called them the guy said "as far as we are concerned it's not our problem, its yours" so i said "what exactly do i owe you money for", and this is the bit really boiled my piss, the guy says "thats for you to find out as I said before its no longer our concern." Jesus christ it was like talking to a brick wall.You cant just ask somebody for £3000 and not tell them why you owe you that to them.

Who were you talking to, the Collector's Office or the Inspector's Office? The Collector does not know nor care how the liability has arisen. He only knows how much you owe and when it was due. If you have a dispute with the amount, you need to talk to the Inspectore. If you cannot pay it by the due dates, you still need to talk to the Inspector. They will accomodate staged payments if you are having cashflow problems.

The system is not called Self Assessment for nothing. It is the taxpayer's respnsibility to know their tax liabilities and pay them by the set dates.

I was a victim of the Inland Revenge in January. I found out they had changed my tax code (2 years previously) to the wrong code - they didn't tell me by sending a change of coding notice. I was supposed to have noticed my code had changed on my wage slips and thus presented me with a £5K bill. I am PAYE taxed at source so this was totally unexpected. I have had 3 letters of apology from HMRC saying basically yes we made repeated failure after failure but all sign off with ultimately its my responsibility so get stuffed, but here's £25 for the inconvenience - that I still haven't received.

The Inland Revenge take the attitude that you should be forensically checking your tax each month because they are so incompetent that it would cost them millions, probably billions if they had to pay for their own mistakes.

Hopefully the new Taxpayer's Charter will give honest people like myself more redress. I've spent more than £25 in letters and phone calls sorting their mistakes out.

IR staff get bonuses on how much tax they can collect so they are inherently biased. The adjudicators office is run by the Gubberment too so you have no redress.

What are they paying on any tax they owe you have a guess : 0%

[anonymous-user]

catso said:

And they stopped sending pre-paid envelopes for VAT returns - bastids......

Again, register online, so much easier anyway. They take the ££ via DD about 7 days after the quarter end.

[Corpulent Tosser]

I too have been late and had penalties becuase of it, even court summons, but often I have had demands, paid them and then later got the money back as an overpayment, I don't think one hand knows what the other is doing.

That said if you are going to pay late better do it to the tax man than VAT, they REALLY know how to hit you with penalties.

[Eric Mc]

Corpulent Tosser said:

I too have been late and had penalties becuase of it, even court summons, but often I have had demands, paid them and then later got the money back as an overpayment, I don't think one hand knows what the other is doing.

That said if you are going to pay late better do it to the tax man than VAT, they REALLY know how to hit you with penalties.

The Revenue DO expect tax payers to take some interest in their own tax affairs. Finding out TWO YEARS after the event that your Tax Code was wrong does smack of a bit of negligence in monitoring one's tax affairs. Even if the Revenue didn't send out a Coding, the coding does show up in various places - such as on your payslip (depending on the payslip type used by your employer) and on your P60 (always).

[oilydan]

The inland what? Who?