Stick it to the tax man
Ironic to find an article of this nature in the Guardian, home of left-leaning wombats and “supporters” of the Liberal Dimocrats. Perhaps they want to try and deny a Conservative government funds? Certainly, it is a far cry for their normal cries to clamp down on middle-class tax evasion.
Millions of people who have been told by HMRC that they have underpaid tax should ask for the outstanding amount to be written off, according to a leading tax expert.
On Friday HMRC admitted it had made mistakes in collecting tax through the Paye As You Earn (PAYE) system from nearly 6 million taxpayers. Around 4.3 million of these have paid too much and are due a refund, but 1.4 million have underpaid and will have to hand over an average of £1,428 each.
But if HMRC was provided with all the necessary information needed to correctly attribute a tax code, it should have used this within 12 months of the end of the tax year in which it was received to claw back the full amount of money. If HMRC fails to meet that deadline taxpayers can ask for the unpaid tax to be written off through an “Extra Statutory Concession” or ESC A19.
In the spirit of campaigning for things that truly matter, I will ask you the following request: if you are one of the 1.4 million who owe extra funds, please write to HMRC and ask for them to write off the funds under ESC A19. Please do this even if you know that there isn’t a hope in hell for your case. 1.4 million letters to be answered will drag the useless and incompetent tax department down even further.
Make them work for every single penny.
They haven’t earned it — you have.
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1
September 23, 2010 at 07:16 -
Perhaps the dear old Grauniad’s playing the long game, intending to use the evidence of this error & the consequences to lobby for HMRC to take over PAYE entirely..?
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2
September 23, 2010 at 07:38 -
I wonder what those people, the majority I believe, will do when they are told they have paid too much tax and will receive a rebate. Do you think they should erite to the tax man as well.
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3
September 23, 2010 at 07:40 -
Ewrite – a formal letter using email? Sory for the typo.
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4
September 23, 2010 at 08:09 -
Whats the betting anyone who has overpaid is either a politician (current or not) or a member of a politicians family?
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5
September 23, 2010 at 09:12 -
Good for the Grauniad – IMO HMRC have always followed their ‘official error’ rules/concessions in the breach rather than the spirit in that they were written.
With the onset of Self Assessment HMRC appear not to see the relevance of the official error provisions, as demonstrated by ‘Dave’ Hartnett’s comments a couple of weeks ago.
IMO HMRC has become unfocussed – and another branch of Nu Labour’s welfare state. When its role was simply computing, administering & collecting tax it was (for a mostly uncomputerised department) fairly effective, and quite efficient. Brown merged the Inland Revenue & Customs + Excise in the hope that IR good practice would pervade Customs, then saddled the mixed entity with the tax credit administration burden. The mixed department now appears to have the sh*tty mindset previously associated with Customs officers, is byzantine in its complexity & appears no longer fit for purpose. Slim it down, or better still Privatise it!
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6
September 23, 2010 at 11:18 -
I doubt the supposed merits of the HMRC conflagration were high on Brown’s list of priorities, or the civil servants who will have suggested the plan. The Government has never been all that good at predicting the future anyway. Nobody in their right mind would have believed the ‘business case’ for doing it.
Government these days is all about change rather than competency. They feel they need to be seen doing stuff so keep changing rules, departments and all the rest to put their stamp on matters. Identifying why departments are failing and then fixing it is not as speedy or PR worthy as just rebranding it and throwing more money and authority at them.(Those on the inside will always insist it is a lack of both that is causing problems. It rarely is.)
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7
September 23, 2010 at 23:55 -
I wonder if Gordon Brown really merged IR into Customs & Excise to allow IR the dubious right of entry into your home without warrant as I believe is allowed by the Customs & Excise
Btw pleased to see the “bonfire of quangos” has started.
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8
September 23, 2010 at 12:58 -
See Private Eyes passim re The Guardian’s ultimate holding company’s (alleged*) use of offshore tax havens to avoid forking out to HMRC.
1) Do I smell the foul odour of Guardianista hypocrisy?
2)* I use the word “alleged” to prevent rapacious (is there any other sort?) lawyers harassing me. -
9
September 23, 2010 at 13:51 -
What about the Guardians favourite Tax consultant Richard Murphy’s campaign for everyone to pay tax according to the ‘spirit of the tax law’? Surely the Guardian should be doing its bit to make people pay up as requested, not wriggle out on a technicality? After all if HMRC ask for the cash, they couldn’t possibly be wrong could they? They are part of the State after all, all seeing, all knowing.
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10
September 23, 2010 at 21:15 -
In my experience, it is always best to NEVER contact the Tax Office.
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