HMRC in melt down
 

There was a report on the BBC news this morning concerning 1000's of pensioners being sent demands for unpaid tax.This story has been floating around for a few months now but has taken a new twist as the pensioners have been told that bailiffs will be visiting to remove possessions unless paid in 28 days .

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/tax/inc...&in_page_id=77


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ox/9464716.stm

The above is just the latest cockup ,i have been self employed for nearly 20yrs and over the last 5yrs or so i have noticed a distinct downturn in the HMRC's capabilities to collect the correct tax or to correct errors .I have an ongoing issue where the HMRC owe me nearly £5000 ,i find it impossible to speak to anyone as they now operate from a call center(officially known as the tax helpline) and you cannot speak to anyone who actually deals with your tax affairs ,it takes a minimum of 3 months to open and read any corrospondence and if different departments within the HMRC are involved then there is a 1 month delay as that dept takes possesion of the case and then another month to pass it back to the original dept dealing with issue .My case involves several depts so i have been advised that it will be at least another 2 months before there is a result ,they recieved my paperwork on 7th oct 2010

In my opinion a dept as important as the HMRC needs to be run correctly and efficiently, even more so in the current times as it is important that the government get the tax due but are not bogged down with sorting out errors in tax codes resulting in under/over payments

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

Without bring everyone with details I have been in dispute the Revenue for the last few years over a tax refund which they ignore and their insistance that I draw on a pension fund I never heard of.

I find it impossible to phone as they just dump you from the queue and I get no response from letters or forms.

They are utterly useless.

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

This is the same problem i have ,when i do manage to speak to someone in the call center all they do is "put a note on your file" they cannot tell you anything as they don't have access .Going to my local tax office is no better as they don't have any authority either any more .They will just add the information to your file and then it gets lost in the system

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

Not even a local office round here, they closed it down.

I have an idea the nearest office might be in Leicester which is a few hours drive away.

HMRC is just one instance among many of how the Countries administration disintegrated under NuLabour. Depressingly, IMO, there doesn't seem to be any indications of any improvement under this present coalition who seem to be more interested in making war on all and sundry than they do in running the Country. :mad:;)

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

What worries me is that people are now in a position where they have pay whatever the HMRC say they have to pay with no reasonable way of appealing the decisions ,such as the examples of pensioners given the wrong code in error .They will be subject to the new penalties which came into force this tax year (6 april )which are much more penalising than previously

Length of delay
Penalty you will be asked to pay
One day
Initial £100
Three months
£10 each day - up to maximum of £900.
Six months
£300 or 5% of the tax due, whichever is the higher.
Twelve months£300 or 5% of the tax due, whichever is the higher.
In serious cases you may be asked to pay up to 100% of the tax due instead.



there are further penalties for innacuracy/mistakes on the returns

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sa/deadlines-penalties.htm#3

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

That's what we were told would happen when the Inland revenue and customs were merged, it'd be so much more efficient, despite losing 14% of the combined workforce.

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

And that is exactly the time i noticed the downhill slide of the service .It is now a giant dept answerable to nobody .If you make a complaint it takes upwards of 3 months to open the letter

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

Just another job left half done.

They need to merge in the CSA, DVLA, MOD and the passport Office too for the complete cock-up.

:LOL:

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

Wonder if they've worked out yet how they managed to send me a letter informing me of overpayment of tax and a commensurate code adjustment then send me a letter claiming I had previously received notification that I owe them just over 2,000 quid in the space of a couple of months.

HMRC is a disaster. An absolute unmitigated disaster.

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

and here we were blaming the banks for our financial mess:rolleyes: ,it's cases like that ,that make me wonder if the treasury actually have a clue how much money we do have

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

You and me both. ;)

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13203122


That was a huge success :rolleyes: or maybe 28,500 didn't owe any more tax HMRC just thought they did

A huge amount ,but why does the government assume it's money owed and not continual cockups by the biggest ,most inefficient department it has

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

For several months many staff where I work, including me, have had their tax codes rocketing all over the place like it was November 5th. Fortunately, our salaries lady has contact with someone sensible at HMRC (thank goodness there's one left ;) ) and they agreed not to implement any of the changes till the situation was sorted, which has now happened.

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

I wonder how many of those 28,500 healthcare professionals decided 'Sod this' if that was the government's attitude and decided to move to sunnier, lower tax and higher paying climes.

I have a fabulous way to reduce unpaid tax - stop asking for so much of it that it's pulling some people into welfare then handing it back to them.

Pre-credit crunch was a record boom, unemployment at a record low, yet more people were in receipt of welfare than ever before. :nutter:

More of this, more of this, less:

http://cocoandlowe.com/blog/wp-conte...icture-441.png

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

ignition they will still avoid paying tax or moan about it.

not so long ago the top rate was nearer 90% then 40%, so in affect in 2 decades its dropped a massive amount, yet here we are now with people moaning about contributing to society complying with the law.

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

That was then, this is now. I couldn't care less about what the tax rates were like 2 decades ago and it should be noted that indirect taxation has increased substantially in the interim.

I especially couldn't care less given I wasn't paying income tax 20 years ago. I have every right to moan when the government takes more and more of the money I go to work for and sprays it up the wall either to buy votes, further their own political agendas or because they are scared of offending certain groups.

Of course this comes from the angle of someone who considers himself a grown up who quite likes the idea of looking after himself and his own rather than just handing all his money over to the government to look after him as they see fit like some child unable to take care of himself and who thinks that work and trying to excel should be rewarded rather than redistributed.

YMMV.

EDIT: Incidentally having reached a breaking point both with governmental greed and with HMRC I'm taking tax advice next month on how to reduce my own tax bill. That's what happens when you squeeze people too hard, at a certain point it becomes not only viable but attractive to spend the time and money to reduce the tax bill.

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

my point been even at a 10% rate these same people would still pay for someone to fiddle their income figures and avoid tax. For some people what money they have is never enough.

Re: HMRC in melt down
 

Not so much, there's a point when the risk and costs involved in such an enterprise are no longer worthwhile and simply paying the tax is the way forward.

Regardless if this is a problem it's a symptom of a broken tax code. The simpler said code is the less opportunity there is to avoid it.

Some people really do like to keep hold of their money rather than handing it over for redistribution. Strange that.