Commiserations to Dave Stacey of Torquay who, despite still being very much alive, was recently pronounced dead by HMRC.
This Is South Devon reports that Mr Stacey received a letter from HMRC asking him to fill out a form about the estate of the late David L Stacey (ie himself).
A spokesman for HMRC said:
"We are very sorry to hear of the problems your reader has had. We apologise to both him and his family for any distress caused by the letter we issued to him in error."
At least HMRC have readily acknowledged the error. In June 2010 Tonie Francis had considerable problems convincing HMRC that she was still alive:
"Tonie Francis whose family were sent a letter by HMRC's tax credit office in Preston informing them that she was dead. The letter requested details of Miss Francis's next of kin, and a copy of her will.
However, there was a small fly in HMRC's oinkment, Ms Francis is still very much alive!
She therefore called HMRC to correct the error.
Can you guess what happened next?
Yes, that's right, HMRC refused to talk to her because she was dead; needless to say her tax credits and child benefit were stopped as well."
Re Mr Stacey, there might be an upside, being pronounced dead before you are actually dead does at least mean you won't receive any more letters from HMRC!
Tax does have to be taxing.
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Population UK = 62,000,000. 2 people get incorrect (but distressing letters) therfeore HMRC in meltdown, all staff are fucking useless, etc etc ad nauseam
ReplyDelete62M in the tax net, really?:)
DeleteKen you're getting a bit boring.
DeleteEveryone over the age of 16 has a national insurance number, so that's the majority of the population for starters. The parents of those under 16 are probably getting some element of tax credits, so 62 million seems about right to me. Oh by the way, people who use :) :0 ;) etc are usually twats Ken (thought you should know).
DeleteRe being "boring", maybe to others I am, but evidently not to you; as I see you have made the effort to post 3 different comments on this site, in the space of 30 mins.
DeleteHmm, National Insurance database is shared between HMRC and DWP so if one department is notified someone is dead then it goes to follow the other department would have the same information.
ReplyDeleteIn keeping with Kens excellent track record of posting stories on here to make a purely speculative point based on unknowns. I'm trying to think of a reason why someone would try to convince he DWP they are no longer alive, especially if they've been sent a letter stating "We've found out you've committed benefit fraud and we'd like some of our money back please".
Not that that is what I'm suggesting here.
PS Ken, You've acknolwedged HMRC look after Child Benefit. Children whose parents receive Child Benefit have national insurance numbers, yet you never hear of a story of Little Mary aged 3 getting a tax code from Tesco's, which if HMRC were making such a hash of things as you inadequately claim, you would think something like this would have come up by now.
Sounds like you are suggesting that, I assume therefore HMRC and DWP will be looking into this?
DeleteThink the ad hominem department are a little busy.
DeleteAs the saying goes there are two things certain in life Death & Taxes
ReplyDeletethey are absolutely fucking useless to the highest emphasis. Christ, I spent about 30 minutes in one week in the que ringing about my N.I number (which I STILL have NOT received). I just there tried to email them and guess what? Oh yeah that won't work either. Good grief they should be fucking shot, if they want something off you I bet there's no time to think of it before they send a letter to your door...just pure madness it is.
ReplyDelete