The Tax Debacle

[crookesey]

No, we will ignore them, write them off, clear as "balanced", pretend they never happened. Only for this year though, the tolerances are due to go back to how they were next year.

 

At least this is the theory. The tolerances have been set at £300 this year to see how that impacts on customer contact. They've balanced "getting it right" with "getting it done".

 

I dare say that leaves HMRC vulnerable to legal action for not treating everyone equally.

 

So anything over £300.00 and I'm a debtor, whilst any sum less makes me a reluctant philanthropist, at least Dick Turpin had the good grace to wear a mask. Us common people are classed as transgressors if we err, you

guys simply apply tolerances on yourselves.

 

How about trying something innovative by doing your job properly? No wonder the majority of the private sector looks at the public sector as being not fit for purpose.

 

By the way, this was not personal.

[truman]

 

The Government sets the rules and HMRC implement them. If they are implemented incorrectly it is down to HMRC, not the Government.

 

 

I don't think the number of changes and their complexity helped anyone....

[Alex C.]

So anything over £300.00 and I'm a debtor, whilst any sum less makes me a reluctant philanthropist, at least Dick Turpin had the good grace to wear a mask. Us common people are classed as transgressors if we err, you

guys simply apply tolerances on yourselves.

 

How about trying something innovative by doing your job properly? No wonder the majority of the private sector looks at the public sector as being not fit for purpose.

 

By the way, this was not personal.

 

If you're talking about overpayments (where they owe you), I'm fairly sure you can still claim it back but you have to send off a form (just like I did when the electric company owed me money!) for them to work it out.

 

If you're talking about underpayments, then the private sector regularily write off debt when they figure it will cost less to write off than to persue it. My housemate owes Sky £350 and just this week they offered to write off 75% of it, and give him £50 Marks and Spencers vouchers if he came back as a customer.

[L00b]

The thresholds this year have been set at £300, previously they were a lot less. Which means if you owe, or are owed £299.99 then we will ignore it. If you owe or are owed £300 then we will pursue it.

 

PAYE results in under and over payments every single year but usually these are looked at and corrected by a human being. This year a computer is doing that job which has resulted in far greater number of people receiving notices.

'The computer is doing it' fails to explain why 4.3 millions will get a £400 refund, and 1.4 millions will get a £1500 bill. Nice round numbers.

 

Computers are very stupid things, they only do what they're told to do.

 

A person's tax liability is highly unlikely to be mirror-precisely the same as someone else's (to the extent of some 4 million people out of the 6 having the exact same liability), so can I ask how these figures -particularly the exact same rebate for millions of taxpayers- were arrived at?

 

Looks more to me like someone at No.10 or Whitehall found a bit of a hole and is trying to find something to plug it with, and bag some voters in the process

[foxy lady]

In many cases, they sent the wrong codes which were either not questioned or corrected.

 

I was issued 2 different tax codes last year and I don't even work for a living.

[Alex C.]

L00b, they're average figures according to BBC news

[wednesday1]

Computers are only as good as the people who feed in the info / parameters.

 

Let's hope we all get a pleasant surprise from HMRC!

[truman]

'The computer is doing it' fails to explain why a very large majority of the 6 millions will get a £400 rebate, and a minority will get a £1500 bill.

 

Computers are very stupid things, they only do what they're told to do

 

A person's tax liability is highly unlikely to be mirror-precisely the same as someone else's (to the extent of some 4 million people out of the 6 having the exact same liability), so can I ask how these figures -particularly the exact same rebate for millions of taxpayers- were arrived at?

 

As Alex said this is an average figure some will owe/be owed less or more than this...

[L00b]

Fair enough. Based on the average, that's still a cool £380m revenue (minus overheads of course). And a particularly 'useful' way of presenting its collection...

 

...I wonder what the excuse will be for the one next year?

[Ravenger]

I got caught out by a Tax Credit overpayment some years ago. I lost my job, and had to notify the Inland Revenue as it was then about my change in circumstances.

 

They put me down as being on a higher income support (which I wasn't) that automatically triggered full tax credits. I contacted them and said they'd got it wrong, but was told it was all correct. I even suggested that they might have me down for the wrong income support benefit, but no, it was all ok.

 

Then I get a letter over a year later saying I'd been overpaid over £2000 and they'd be reducing my tax credits to reclaim it. I appealed, but they upheld the original decision saying that I should have realised something was wrong and told them - which of course I had!

 

I didn't know at the time that they record all the calls, otherwise I'd have asked for the recording and re-appealed.

 

I'm still paying back the tax credits 5 years later! The only reason I claim it now is to repay back the overpayment. I wouldn't bother otherwise as it's a far too complex system and just prone to errors, like the PAYE system.