Timescale - getting tax back from UK

[Nell]

Today, I paid my 1st French Tax bill and took my FD5 forms to the Tax office to be forwarded to the UK. Any ideas on how long I have to wait until I see my refund from Nottingham? Oh the joys of paying tax and dealing with bureaucracy [:)]

[Gastines]

A very long road but don't give up,I'm sure they work on the hope that you will. Your first copy will be mislaid/lost or won't arrive so photocopy everything. The copy stamped at the Tax Office here I actually forwarded to Nottingham myself as it appears that also got lost. Make sure you get the correct forms to claim your rebate,I believe they can be downloaded now, I received the the wrong ones from Nottingham.  Give them at least 4 weeks to reply to anything and if like me you are unlucky enough to get 4 different people dealing with a simple claim, the best of luck.  Keep cool and don't let them wear you down. After many mistakes and delays I was lucky enough in the end,person number 4, who was pleasant, helpful and actually found my paperwork and dealt with my claim.Cheque now in the bank.

Regards.

[Roz]

Hi Nell, hope you don't have to wait as long as we did! We put our FD5 into the Melle tax office last September, and rang our UK tax office at the end of October to enquire how things were proceeding, only to discover they hadn't received it. When I enquired at Melle it seemed they had a query with one of our figures and had sat on the file until we contacted them! (thank goodness I was just a little impatient!) So it would be well worth checking with your Centre D'impot in a week or so to ask if everything went off okay. Also, if you email the tax office in the UK after a couple of weeks, they will reply with some kind of time scale. We finally got our rebate from O/H's private pension on May 1st this year. Unfortunately our savings bank (Abbey) do not participate in the Refund scheme and do not use Form 105  to generate a refund of tax paid on the interest on our savings, which we still haven't received. We had to re-apply to the tax office on Form R43. It seems we will have to apply every year for this - so Good Luck!!

[tinabee]

This post reminded me I hadn't had a reply to the R43 I submitted earlier this year (May). Having just rung the centre for non-residents it would appear they never received the form. Good job I had kept a copy.

Here we go again [:'(]

[Ron Avery]

[quote user="Gastines"]

A very long road but don't give up,I'm sure they work on the hope that you will. Your first copy will be mislaid/lost or won't arrive so photocopy everything. The copy stamped at the Tax Office here I actually forwarded to Nottingham myself as it appears that also got lost.

[/quote]

 

If you follow the correct procedure and don't try and short cut it, like some seem to want to do, its very simple.  Ideally the FD5 should be returned with the tax return, not the payment, but that gets stamped by your local tax office and sent to Paris, who log it and take the French copy and forward the other one to Nottingham.  There may be a longer delay than the normal two weeks as its peak holiday time in France.  Nottingham is not the tax office for non residents its only an admin centre.  They check that the dates declared of leaving UK tally and forward to Bootle the non resident tax office. Then delays can occur, it all depends on how quickly your old UK tax office gets together your file and forwards it to Bootle, this can take three or four weeks at busy times, your local tax office will advise Bootle of tax paid since leaving the UK and the amount to be refunded, if you are on a pension that is taxed in France, Nottingham will also authorise your pension provider to pay your pension gross.  If you follow the correct procedure you should have your refund and tax code change within 12 weeks.

[Bugsy]

Ron is spot on with the timescale. Mine from start to finish was just a couple of days over 12 weeks. I did have to make a couple of 'reminder' calls though.

Gary.

[Sunday Driver]

Agree with Ron - just follow the proper procedure and get it into the French system without delay and they'll promptly send it back to the UK - although they did have a slight hiccup back in 2005 when they were moving their Paris office...

Looking at previous threads on this subject, it seems that there have been delays on the UK side, although in my own case, they were very quick.  They obviously saw the name 'Sunday Driver' on the form.....[8-|]

 

 

[Nell]

Thanks for the replies.

Ron and Bugear - hopefully I have followed the correct procedure. I telephoned the Bootle tax office yesterday to chase our P85 forms (OH got confirmation of receipt of his a few months ago, but I didn't). Anyway - the lady in Bootle said that, both of our tax files were in Nottingham awaiting tie up with our FD5 forms, so hopefully they won't go astray in the French system (or the UK one for that matter !! ).

Now can I please ask another question - There is another form (don't remember the number off the top of my head) but it is to claim back tax taken from savings if the bank won't change my account to "tax exempt". When do I fill this in and send it off? After I see what I get back from the tax office? After annual interest is posted to my savings account? or after 5th April each year? 

Who said retirement was easy? [:D] 

[krusty]

I sent my FD5 to my local French tax office in March this year , I have heard nothing yet , so I have written to the UK tax office to see if it arrived .

If I get a reply I will update.

[Sunday Driver]

Krusty, if you sent your FD5 to your tax office as early as March, that would have been some time before you actually sent in your first tax declaration - which is when the FD5 should have been sent in!!  That probably means they'd have had no tax paperwork to tie it up to, so they may have just filed it somewhere.

It might be a good idea to speak to your local tax office about it.

 

[krusty]

Thanks SD , but this is my second tax declaration , so the paperwork did have my French tax number on it. I only obtained the FD5 early this year so I thought it would be good to get it into the French tax office before their busy time.

[Sunday Driver]

Blimey, you're slow.....[:)]

 

[Gastines]

Ron., we did follow the Paris route the first time. The St.Malo office,who are always very helpful, said we send it to Paris and then they forward it to UK. When it was apparently "not received" the UK office suggested I made sure my getting the form from St.Malo and forwarding it myself. Perhaps they follow the Blairite Crooks Code," Have 3 goes before you get caught". Hopefully all is in order at the moment and I await my winter fuel allowance,which has always been warmly received.

Just checked .Refund requested May23rd Received Aug 5th from Nottingham.

Regards.

[tinabee]

[quote user="Nell"]

Now can I please ask another question - There is another form (don't remember the number off the top of my head) but it is to claim back tax taken from savings if the bank won't change my account to "tax exempt". When do I fill this in and send it off? After I see what I get back from the tax office? After annual interest is posted to my savings account? or after 5th April each year? 

Who said retirement was easy? [:D] 

[/quote]

The form you need is an R43 available here

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/nonresidents/fagallow_nonres.shtml

You can send it off as soon as you have your section 352 certificate from the bank (which normally arrives in April).  I will be sending mine by registered post with proof of receipt next year, so as to avoid the problems I had this year. As an update from my last post, I had to re-send the forms to Nottingham and have now received my tax back. The speed may have been due to the fact that I kept asking for updates via email [6]

[parsnips]

When I started to recieve my uk State Pension I had to submit the  FD5 last summer ; I have long been taxed in France but having heard many tales of forms being lost by "the french", I sent it Racommandé avec AR to the tax office. After about a month I phoned the UK office and was told it had not arrived, so I waited another 2 months and phoned again, still not arrived.

I later phoned the local french impot centre who told me that 2 days after they recieved it it was sent to the "bureau des étrangers" in Paris for onward transmission to the UK. I found the Paris phone number and (probably by a miracle) the person to whom it had been sent . She traced her record and told me it left her office three weeks after I submitted it and she was able to trace it until it left France for the UK the next day.  I then phoned the UK and was told it had not arrived -we were now in December, I then told them I KNEW it had been sent to them in September. I was then told "well, it may have arrived, but we won't know until it has been registered as arrived", I then asked where it might be, as I was  getting a little concerned, I was then told"  until we get round to registering them we put them all in a room"!!!

               They finally confirmed it as having arrived several months later and it was eventually dealt with several months after that. It wasn't the delay that bothered me (as others have said, eventually everything gets paid back) - it was not knowing if the process  had even started.

[Gardian]

[quote user="Sunday Driver"]

Looking at previous threads on this subject, it seems that there have been delays on the UK side,[/quote]

Indeed.  Far be it from me to quarrel with Ron and/or SD, but the delay a year ago was 9 mths from receipt in the UK.

Maybe, just maybe, it has improved since then.  I hope that I'm wrong.

[Roz]

Take heart! We completed an R43 to re-claim tax paid on interest on savings for 07/08 after completing our tax forms here, and have now received our cheque!

[Ron Avery]

As had ben posted many times on here its often delays in the UK Tax offices,  as three separate offices are involved plus former employers, that causes delays in processing tax refunds and code changes, particularly at busy periods  in the tax year.  For most its not the French who hold it all up, which is often the accusation levelled on here when things go astray,  its often the people themselves not asking what is the correct procedure and even when knowing what it is, deciding they know best and send the forms direct to Paris or Nottingham.

Yes there are delays but there are far more satisfied customers like the poster above than those who have problems.

[tuppence]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news[:(] but I have just had a conversation with the Non Residents dept, Tax office in Nottingham and their backlog has increased. I was told that for me to get anything back at all after receipt of France Individual forms, will take at least ONE YEAR!!!!!!!!  Bang go the new windows then[:@].

tuppence

[Just Chris]

So, we're effectively giving our money to the UK government for up to a year, for which we'll get no interest.  Imagine the hooha if we withheld tax payments from them for that long.  I'm paying nearly £4K income tax on my pension in the UK, and they can't even give me a zero tax code until this is sorted out, so it looks like we'll be paying twice for yet another year. Makes you wonder how many of us really are leaving the sinking ship, if they can't cope.

[krusty]

 

I wish I had a pension big enough to pay £4k tax on. [:)]

[mint]

Krusty, don't everybody pay £4k tax on their pension then?

[Gastines]

I wonder how many extra staff have been taken on since Mr.G. Brown. M.P. said he would rid departments of 120000 surplus ? Any time I have wanted money back there is a delay or items lost,used to be quite efficient when they wanted payment. I hoped last year that I'd never have to deal with them again.After 6 years registered as a tax payer in France but due to the equally hopeless people working in the banks in the UK, they have decided this year to start deducting 40% tax on a joint account even though they have paid previous years gross. Still, it seems Mr Darling might need to borrow my cash for 12 months to help pay a few bills. I just hope they haven't gone bust before I get it back,no interest of course.

Regards.

[krusty]

Just to update , original FD5 sent March this year , copy sent in August .

I phoned them today , and was told the copy in August had been received but it could still take another 12 weeks.

[tuppence]

Touche Krusty,

An e-mail received today from HMRC in Nottingham said exactly the same, received 10/09/2008 should be dealt with in 12 weeks. Mind you I rang on 25/9/2008 and they said it had not been received. So another case of left hand and right hand not knowing what they are doing. But it might make Christmas that much better if they stick to the 12 weeks. (Interestingly enough I wonder if the 12 weeks includes the 5 weeks that they have already had the forms there)[8-)]

tuppence