UK Inland Revenue Madness

[Bikboks]

I have had four letters from three different UK tax offices telling me that I am now on the basic rate UK tax deduction rate (20%). One letter has now listed my income and UK allowances and "calculated" my new tax code. My pension providers have now been told to deduct tax.

I have lived in France for nearly seven years and have been authorised as a UK Non-Resident for tax purposes for all that time. I pay all taxes required of me in France for the same period.

I have written to these half-baked IR morons with copies of my NT authorisation letters and hope this will end the nonsense. However, for the next period of time I will be losing necessary income until they rescind their instruction to my pension providers.

If they doubted my circumstances, why didn't they write to me and ask before taking unilateral action? If they thought they needed to calculate my code, why didn't they send a Tax Return form?

Has anyone else experienced this total insanity?

[Vanman]

And if I remember rightly, you will be entitled to interest on any tax wrongly deducted (you lucky person) ............

............................................................................................................ but only calculated from 30 January 2010 if they haven't repaid it by then.

[Benjamin]

Mrs Benjamin did about three years ago and a new notification of coding was issued to her pension provider.

We tackled it by contacting the Centre for Non- Residents, telling themn who had issued the erroneous notification and they sorted it out immediately. If you stop to think about it's the C for N-R's which issued the NT notification so it's them who have all of the documentary proof that you're non-resident.

Why it was issued we don't know but we were given to believe it was part of a big exercise to do with annuities. One of the offices wasn't in Leicester by any chance?

[andyh4]

Useless bunch of wussocks.

 

Not the same as you, but I received my first tax for in over 6 years - minus instructions for filling it in.  Requested instructions.  UK ones sent - you know the ones without the country codes that you need for filling in foreign residency!.  Request correct instructions.  Arrived and filled out the main form, but there is a second form - and no instructions - and I have now receievd my first warning of no tax return and the cut off date is now fast approaching.  Fill out second form on a wing and a prayer with the notes annotated to say that I do not believe I have correctly filled this out but I have filled out my German salary in a particular section because there seemed to be nowhere else to fill it in.

Send off the forms - 4€ postage.

 

3 weeks later get the whole lot returned because I had not filled out a work related income form - which now for the first time they had sent me.  Now the whole amazing thing about this is that each time I had to phone for the correct instructions to be sent the first question was: Name: second NI or tax number; and the third was emplyer?  So the * rses knew I was still employed.

 

So filled out the form and sent the whole lot back - 4.5€ postage.

 

And they still **cked up and posted money into my account that I was not entitled to.

 

And if you ever need anything other than a simple question about literature answering, when they pick up the phone and say IR, this is Tracy speaking, ask to speak directly to a technical advisor - but do this sometime around 09:00 UK because after that you'll be on the phone waiting for hours for one (probably the only one) to come free - literally.

 

Sorry if there are any ex-IR staff on here, but it's gone downhill since you left.  And if there are any current IR staff, I'd keep quiet unless you like hate mail.[6]

[Pierre ZFP]

A new word:

Intaxication

Definition:

Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realise it was your money to start with.

[dragonrouge]

Hi we have been here for years and all our income be in pension or rental income from our house has been at NT.  We have sent to these guys the nice forms which go to Paris and indeed have hand delivered a set as well.  Then a month ago we had a response to an email placed on their site and said that neither my wife or I were entitled to NT and unless we sorted ourselves out then we would 'suffer' I started a complaints procedure against a really nasty lady who basically was lecturing me.  I do not mind being lectured providing that the lecture is balance neutal and of value.  This did not comply on any of the stages.  Then I phoned the office manager and whose name I have and played hell.  In the meantime I sent and scanned every conceivable document I had from them (80) and so their system then bombed them because of the file content.  So I had to send 80 separate emails.

Next day a rather nice lady telephoned me and I too have her name and some four days later everything was agreed and I have a very official letter saying that all my UK income does not attract tax and I am resident in France.  But if I come back please tell them!

We pay all of our taxes in France.

Please note the guys in Nottingham are working week ends to catch up with emails and letters and which go back three months and in some cases six months.

[Russethouse]

And if I remember rightly, you will be entitled to interest on any tax wrongly deducted (you lucky person) ............

Yes, but only at bank rate (or maybe something just above)......

[Vanman]

Thanks,  dragonrouge, for pointing out that HMRC staff at Nottingham they are working all hours to catch up with a huge backlog of post. It's very easy to imagine that individual HMRC people aren't doing their job, but a large part of the blame must be down to the government for making large cuts in HMRC staff and then expecting those still there to deal with the same amount of work (or maybe more). What actually happens is that - with a very few honourable exceptions - the tax staff who are good at their work suddenly discover they can earn twice as much working for an accountancy firm. And many then go and do so. But don't get me started on the HMRC "call centres".

I am grateful to dragonrouge, as she/he stopped me from replying to the latest stupid letter I've had from HMRC.

My tax return last year said I wasn't resident in the UK (but of course they can't give me an NT code until the French authorities put their stamp on the form - even though HMRC did refund all the 2007/8 taxes I'd paid since I'd left the UK).

So now I've just received a 2009/10 coding notice that says "we expect you to pay tax at 40%" - why do they "expect" that? The notice says it's from "CAR Residency .... NR Individuals" - shouldn't they "expect" something slightly different from N(on) R(esident) Individuals? And then they say that they will give me tax relief for my gift aid payments, adding that "the charity may ask you to give a declaration that you are a UK taxpayer". Well surprise surprise - I'm not supposed to be a UK taxpayer, and when I left the UK I stopped the gift aid payments (and I told HMRC. too).

If I'd put this rant in a reply to HMRC, the post backlog would just be bigger, and it's obviously a letter written by a computer anyway. An illiterate computer, at that.

Whew, that's better......

[Bikboks]

Thanks to you all for taking the trouble to write, I can see I was not alone. Apart from writing to the respective tax offices I also sent an e-mail to the central government IR office telling them of this problem. They have e-mailed me back today, apologised for the error and said they will notify the tax offices concerned to correct the situation. They also said that this should have never happened in the first place.

[woolybanana]

It looks as if the Revenue has been looking at lists of names and sending outrageous demands just to fill quotas, without reading the files properly. They are under immense pressure to raise as much money as possible.