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Where Taxpayers and Advisers Meet

HMRC letter of overpayment going back to 5 years

nkomp18
Posts:5
Joined:Thu Apr 12, 2012 11:13 am
HMRC letter of overpayment going back to 5 years

Postby nkomp18 » Fri Jan 12, 2018 10:28 am

Hello all,

I'm at a bit of a loss here. I've been a perm employee for over ten years and the last 5 years I changed 4 jobs.

I have always been paying a lot of tax, 40% bracket, and have always gotten a P45 to the next employer and always called hmrc to update them on any changes (i.e. Higher pension contributions, opting out of taxable benefits etc)

Up until today I haven't had a reason to believe something could be wrong since all my tax codes were calculated and given to me by hmrc.

After Christmas I had 4 letters recalculating all my contributions from 2013 till today with the conclusion that I underpaid a substantial amount.

I'm planning to investigate this myself because I can't believe this could be right, but I'm not sure I have all my payslips and forms from 2013 till today so I'm at a loss how to do this.

I have the derailed numbers that they have sent me.

Any advice where to start?

robbob
Posts:3228
Joined:Wed Aug 06, 2008 4:01 pm

Re: HMRC letter of overpayment going back to 5 years

Postby robbob » Sat Jan 13, 2018 11:00 am

Up until today I haven't had a reason to believe something could be wrong since all my tax codes were calculated and given to me by hmrc.
Its a fatal flaw to presume that hmrc tax codes will always ensure the correct amount of tax is collected during the year, however hmrc normally ensure than an assessment is raised by the 31st January following the end of the tax year for any shortfall - for some reason this doesn't always happen though, and when it goes wrong they tend to make a proper screw up by waiting for a ridiculous amount of time before taking action as its seems to be the case here.

The normal option to avoid being royally screwed by hmrc's unacceptable tardiness in doing their job is apply for Extra statutory concession A19 - there is a very well laid out summary of how the process can work in the link below. HMRC have a very very poor historical record of dealing with ESC19 cases too which has isn't helpful.


https://www.rossmartin.co.uk/private-cl ... ession-a19

Note with regard to their P800 calculations there is also a real danger that their calculations may not be correct - so for each year you need to replace their calculations with the correct figure where appropriate - eg does pension /gift aid relief given match actual relief you were entitled too, same for expense claims.

nkomp18
Posts:5
Joined:Thu Apr 12, 2012 11:13 am

Re: HMRC letter of overpayment going back to 5 years

Postby nkomp18 » Sun Jan 14, 2018 10:07 am

Thank you for that information.

I spent the weekend looking at old payslips, old HMRC letters and P60s (fun weekend that was)

I found a lot of inconsistencies with what the P800 letter says vs what my payslips say.
The amounts match, but the tax codes they have on records don't always match.

Also I discovered that I have already paid some of the underpayment they are charging me, because it is carried forward from the previous year, yet I have a letter from them regarding the 2015-2016 period stating that my tax code during 2016-2017 has been adjusted to collect it.

I also found a lot of inconsistencies from previous years, it is probably too late to fix those.
I'll proceed with the A19 concession and hopefully that will be the end of it.

Thanks again!

nkomp18
Posts:5
Joined:Thu Apr 12, 2012 11:13 am

Re: HMRC letter of overpayment going back to 5 years

Postby nkomp18 » Sun Jan 14, 2018 4:23 pm

Update:

Called HMRC and they were also a bit at a loss. They said that they have no way of knowing if my tax codes were right or wrong, it's up to me to prove that, but I also have no way of knowing.

All I have is my payslips and the knowledge that I kept HMRC always updated with my circumstances which shouldn't have resulted with so many underpayment notices every year.

They arranged from someone from the calculations team to give me a call.

Does anyone have any experience what to expect and what I could potentially have prepared for that call?
I find it frustrating that the responsibility to prove their math is wrong falls on us, especially since these calculations go back many years.

Thanks in advance for any advice


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