Distraint.

[jmh]

Good afternoon all.
After a lengthy investigation by HMRC I have been advised I owe £3347.00 to the tax man. I have offered to pay £50 a month but this was declined, they would accept no less than £200.
I have tried to sell my flat but it is not worth enough to pay off the mortgage let alone the tax bill.
They have advised me a distraint order will probably happen, I live with my partner and literally own NOTHING in our home, even my car is lease hire. The televisions, laptops, furniture etc are all in my partners name, am I right in thinking they cannot take these items?
Also, if I have no possessions of any value, what is the next step?
Many thanks in advance for your help.

[help.ma.boab]

Hi JMH

just on the possessions Q - No, HMRC cannot claim any items which are not owned by you or are even jointly owned.

your other options would be a high street loan (expensive) or depending on where you live, some form of bankruptcy?? I think in Scotland they can then go on and take you to court where you can offer them some ridiculously small sum a month. chances are they will be unable to sell anything so they will look at some form of bankruptcy order

[jmh]

Thanks for your reply.
It seems ridiculous to go bankrupt over £3000! I'm going to look into topping up a loan I already have and will see if it is worth doing.

[Peter D]

Also bear in mind that HMRC charge interest on the outstanding dept untill it is totally paid off. Regards Peter

[mullet]

If HMRC cannot secure the debt by distraint then they will pursue through the courts - they would not initially think about bankruptcy for this amount. I think they may have returned to Summary Proceedings (magistrates' court), if not then expect a County Court summons. You will have the opportunity to "admit" the debt and make an offer of payment by instalments. If you default then the court has various enforcement options, the final one being bankruptcy.

[jmh]

Am I right in thinking that these procedures usually take some time? I'm likely able to pay off £400 each month so hopefully by the time they actually get around to issuing proceedings I'll have almost paid it off!

Many thanks for your advice, it's a massive worry but when I think about it practically it's not a huge amount. So I'll just pay as much as I can as quickly as possible!

[Incredulum]

Your story does not add up.

On another forum you suggested paying £25 per month. Now you say they want £200 per month, yet you think you can come up with £400 a month.

You are trying to take the mickey out of the rest of us who are honest taxpayers.

[jmh]

I wanted to pay £25 a month which I now realise was naive of me. They said they won't accept less than £200 a month so I tried to sell my home in order to pay the bill. If I can't, I'm going to have to cancel payments that I currently make (such as housekeeping to my parnter) to enable me to pay as much as possible, and by doing this I may just be able to scrape together about £400 a month.
I hope this has cleared up any confusion and reinstated me in your mind as an honest tax payer, as obviously with everything that's going on right now in my life, Incredulum, your opinion of me is very important. Not!

[Generix]

Your story does not add up.

On another forum you suggested paying £25 per month. Now you say they want £200 per month, yet you think you can come up with £400 a month.

You are trying to take the mickey out of the rest of us who are honest taxpayers.

Says the (what I can only assume from your posts) tax advisor

But seriously he's right.

Moreover if you can afford to pay £400 a month or £200 a month then I think its unlikely that a court will let you pay less - unless you have some sort of hardship case etc?
Not an expert in this area though...

If you are gonna go through with pleasing that you can only afford £50 or so a month then I would suggest not making any payments exceeding that amount in the meantime...

[Budget83]

HMRC can normally be persuaded that a certain amount if fine as long as they are convinced that you can make your next tax bill that comes along. Hence if you do a pay over time for a vat bill they get edgy if its over 3 months.

Are you self employed? I would suggest some sort of forward planning on your next tax bill and a payment schedule that shows you can meet both bills given some leeway.

Its then all down to negotiation.