My thanks to a loyal reader who shared this experience about being chased by HMRC over child benefit for a "child" who is in fact 31 years old!
"HMRC need a radical over haul - I have just spent 31.42 minutes on the phone (29 of those on hold) to ask why I have received a letter about Child Benefit, my only child is 31.Aside from the error itself (let's face it, errors happen in all organisations), it seems that HMRC's call answering time is still an issue.
Apparently it was a mistake, I pointed out that as a tax payer I objected to my money being wasted in this way. I was told the call was being recorded - I said this was excellent news because if this came back to haunt me in the form of HMRC chasing me for money I could not possibly owe them I would be asking for copies of the recording."
Tax does have to be taxing.
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I received a similar letter even though I do not have any kids. It is all about having to apply for Self Assessment if certain conditions are met. As it does mention on the back other reasons for needing to apply for Self Assessment I suppose HMRC can use that as a defense against wasting money.
ReplyDeleteErrm, since when has HMRC needed to defend itself against anything?
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to wasting money, few parts of the public sector are better, added to which lack of accountability and ethics within probably places this organisation at the top of the heap.
whereas waste in the private sector is merely classed as a legitimate business expense
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