Incorrect P11D

[Victorfoxtrot]

Hello,
I'm hoping someone clever can help me here. I sense that there is something definitely amiss, but I am not 100% sure, and also, don't know what route to take in order to solve it. Here goes, I will provide as much info as I think is relevant, but please feel free to ask for more.

I gave up work on 22 July 2010 and have been unemployed ever since. I am a single person with no dependents, I do not (and have not claimed benefits, I am not a home owner. Pretty straightforward I think. Whilst employed I had a company car & fuel benefit for work & private use. I gave this benefit up on the day I left their employment.

I applied for a tax rebate in January 2011 - I suspected I might be owed some tax back due to only working just under 4 months of the 2010-2011 tax year. After some confusion over my address I eventually got a rebate in August 2011 for £861.60 Fast forward to 23rd Dec 2011. I receive another tax calculation letter stating that they have recalculated my tax and I now owe them £971.60.

I called them on 23rd Dec and was advised that they had since received my P11D and recalculated the tax based on this info. They advised me to contact my ex-employer to get a copy because they didn't have it in front of them. The HMRC advisor suggested that I may well have been taxed for the car/fuel benefit for the entire tax year, as opposed to the 4 month period that I received that benefit. She said I should contact my ex-employer and get them to amend the dates on the P11D.

I have contacted my old employer and they are claiming that there is nothing wrong with the P11D and that HMRC are not reading it correctly. I don't know who is right/wrong! To my novice eyes there do seem to be a few things amiss.
1. On page 2, section F, the dates car was available are both blank. This seems wrong to me - surely at least the 'to' date should be filled in with my leaving date 22/07/10? I understand that the from date should remain blank if the car was available to me prior to 6 Apr 2010, which it was.
2. Should the 'date fuel was withdrawn' also be filled in with 22/07/10?
3. On the P11D Working Sheet 2, section 7 (Deductions for days the car was unavailable), they have listed the dates for the 'period the car was available' as being 06/04/2010/05/04/2011. This is not true! Again, surely the 'to' date should be 22/07/2010?
4. They have calculated the 'total days for which the car was unavailable as 122. How is this calculation arrived at? Whilst working there during the period 06/04/2010-22/07/2010, the car was available to me everyday, which I calculate to be 108 days. The number of days unavailable to me (which I assume is 23/07/2010-05/04/2011) is 257 days.

I fear that my P11D does not reflect the correct number of days the car was available to me, and secondly if the P11D is incorrectly filled out how can I get my employer to re-do it?

Any help is much appreciated, if you need more info please let me know.

[King_Maker]

Yes, it does seem the P11D has not been correctly completed.

Do you have a copy of the actual P11D submitted to HMRC?

If so, are you able to speak to its preparer and resolve any consistencies?

I would think your ex-employer would want this sorted, as it could call into the question the accuracy of the other PAYE paperwork - and the possibility of a PAYE Audit from HMRC.

[etf]

If your P11D benefits have been overstated, your ex-employer will have paid too much class 1A NIC. When they submit your amended P11D they can reclaim the amount overpaid i.e. a win win situation although as King_Maker has stated it might call into question the accuracy of their other filings .

Kind regards

etf

http://theexpatriatetaxfactory.com

[Victorfoxtrot]

Many thanks Kingmaker and Etf. Not being an expert at all in this field, I did wonder if I was beginning to go slightly crazy, but am pleased to hear that I'm right in thinking something is amiss. I think first step is, as you say to go back to my ex-employer and get them to recalculate the 'days unavailable' figure and re-issue the P11D.

I do have a copy of the P11D that the tax office have used, and it is clear that although there is a discrepancy with the 122 days calculation, they have in fact used the wrong figures on the P11D to populate the tax calculation form. Under the 'Your Income' section, they have listed the car benefit as £3956 and the car fuel benefit as £3060. However when you look at the corressponding P11D, for the fuel benefit rather than use the figure listed in box Z (which is the total year cost minus any deductions for days unavailable), they have used the figure in box V - the charge for the whole tax year. For the car benefit they have entered the figure in box P - again the sum for car benefit for the full year, and not box S which is the final figure after deductions.

Thanks again for your help. I'll let you know how I get on. As you say, you'd think my employer would want to sort this, but they were quite defensive and almost didn't want to question it as they outsource it to a big company, who they say are experts.