Coding Cock Ups

The ICAEW reports that HMRC have made a wee bit of a cock up (again) with the codings for people who started receiving the state pension in 2010/11.

It seems that the new pension has not been included in their tax codes.

The normal procedure is for the DWP to tell HMRC when it starts to pay a state pension, so that HMRC can put it in the pensioner's tax code.

Where this has not been done properly for 2010/11, the state pension will not have been taxed and those affected will have underpaid tax.

Those affected should be informed by HMRC via a P800.

HMRC has said that the A19 concession is not applicable this time, because the underpayments are for current tax. However, do bear in mind that they tried to claim that A19 was not applicable for earlier tax underpayments when in fact it was.

Underpayments of less that £2K will be coded out in future years' PAYE codes. HMRC should contact those with underpayments of more than £2K, and give them 3 years to have the underpayment "coded out".

However, just in case there is a cock up wrt communications here are two helplines for contacting HMRC:

- Taxpayers 0845 300 0627
- Agents 0845 366 7855

As to why this cock up has happened again is not clear. Maybe the communications between DWP and HMRC are not as watertight as they used to be?

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Trick or Treat?

A loyal reader sent me this yesterday, re HMRC's address database.

"We received a letter from HMRC a couple of weeks ago for one of our client companies, who use our office as their Registered Office.

HMRC were threatening enforcement action for an amount of £400 (which wasn't due because there is a P35 overpayment to cover it).

We phoned them and quite rightly had to go through their security procedures, but were surprised that the company's address in HMRC's records did not correspond with the Registered Office address. They asked if there was another address, and we gave them the trading address which they said was correct.

This week the company received another letter, but this time it was sent to the trading address not the Registered Office.

Leaving aside the fact we had told them the £400 was the wrong amount of tax outstanding, and that we agreed the liability would be held over until the end of this week, we can't help thinking we were tricked by HMRC into providing an alternative address to help them with their enforcement actions."

Views and comments welcome.

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Feedback About HMRC Website

HMRC have asked for feedback from customers (I mean taxpayers) about the HMRC website.

The feedback can be given via this online form HMRC website quality survey.

Strangely enough the "What's new" section of the HMRC website does not feature this initiative, nor can I find via the HMRC search engine any mention of it, which makes one wonder how people who visit the site are meant to know about it.

Therefore one might care to flag to HMRC that initiatives such as this ought to be made more prominent on the HMRC website, and that the HMRC search engine needs to be improved.

Just a suggestion though:)

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Postman Prat

My thanks to a loyal reader who has alerted me about an arrangement (I assume one that is not in writing) that is said to exist between the Royal Mail and HMRC, concerning the delivery of certain crucial HMRC letters to taxpayers.

My loyal reader advises me that she has heard from an impeccable source within the Royal Mail that many important letters (threats of prosecution, distraint etc) from HMRC are held back for delivery on specfic "red letter days" (ie just before Easter, Christmas, and the New Year).

Why would this be so?

These are the periods when tax advisors, accountants, lawyers etc (ie those who would be helping the taxpayers on the receving end of such letters) are most likely to be setting down their quill pens for a break.

As said, this comes from a loyal reader who herself has been given the information from a source in the Royal Mail. Therefore, she and I would like to ask other loyal readers the following questions:

1 Have others, on the receiving end of important letters from HMRC, noticed a pattern to the dates of receipt?

2 If such an arrangement exists, in what form does it take (eg oral, written)?

3 If such an arrangment exists, how do HMRC and the Royal Mail identify which letters to hold back for "red day delivery"?

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

The Bleeding Edge!

Computing.co.uk reports that HMRC's Head of IT Security Architecture, Chris Franklin, has ruled out investing in "bleeding-edge" technology (even if it could provide enhanced security).

Quote:

"The trouble with bleeding-edge solutions is they tend to need patches and tweaks.

We have 50,000 users every day, so we can't afford service disruptions. We need mature and resilient services."

Franklin added:

"Any new products and capabilities we implement must be non-intrusive.

Even the smallest change to our online service is a big deal.

Our availability requirements mean that any interruption impacts a large number of customers."

He is absolutely correct, it is better that IT solutions are thoroughly proven to work before they are implemented, and I fully agree that HMRC can't afford service disruptions.

Hang on a minute, what did I write the other day??...ROFLOL!!!!

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Lost!

It seems that even ex staff of HMRC cannot quite shake the HMRC curse.

A loyal reader (ex HMRC) informs me of the following problem that he is having wrt lost records:

"HMRC have made a total blunder with regards me applying for Voluntary Early Severance from my current government job.

My records have got lost in a proverbial black hole of Calcutta, caused by our friends at HMRC."

If HMRC lose internal records (relating to staff/ex staff), what do they do with records relating to external "customers" (taxpayers)?

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"