| Re: Thumbs up for the Inland Revenue
I've generally found them very good aswell although they messed up my father's tax return this year.
He's a pensioner but still works part time and has two pensions - a company pension and a state pension. This makes tax collection quite difficult because the hmrc process can only put the tax code against one income stream.
Fortunately my wife is a Chartered Accountant and she helps him complete it, but he is scared stiff of not paying his dues so won't let my wife take fall control of it.
This year he submitted his tax return in June 2008. He chased it through October, November, December and finally January as the hmrc hadn't returned the assessment. Each time they confirmed that they had received it and it would be processed soon.
Eventually it was received mid way through January. I say received, he didn't get the full assessment but a letter with the amount owed. The letter apologised that there wasn't sufficient time to produce the full assessment in time for the due date for payment. The tone of the letter suggested this was my dad's fault even though hmrc received his return 7 months earlier.
In fact when my wife looked at what they were asking for it seemed too much - they were asking for £900 and my wife was expecting around £450. However, because they hadn't received the full assessment there was no detili of how the hmrc had arrived at that number.
She had to spend the next few days speaking to the hmrc and eventually, hmrc admitted that they had made an incorrect assumption about future earnings and they were indeed asking for twice as much as needed.
Now all this scares my dad half to death. He is fortunate to have a Chartered Accountant to fight his battle - I only wonder what un-necessary stress the hmrc put some less fortunate people through.
Cheers,
Nigel
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