VAT - Demand for payment

[allsquare]

Once again HMRC excel themselves.

We've been happily making our VAT return and payment online since the start of the online process.

The VAT return has been made online for Q4 2009/10 with payment due before 7th May 2010

Demand Notice For Immediate Payment received this morning dated 16/04/10 stating that "if you have already paid or believe this sum is not due you should contact this office immediately"

Well i've been trying the number every 10 minutes since 10am and constantly engaged.

We all make mistakes/oversights but HMRC collectively are making these rather too often across all departments in my opinion.

Rant over :mad:

[writecombination]

Last year an older member of my family owed HMRC some tax due to a mistake on the part of the people paying her pensions.

We helped her sort it out and she had a letter from HMRC saying the final balance, about £130, had to be paid by 31 January 2010.

About three months before the due date she received a letter demanding immediate payment AND a telephone call. This was despite the previous letter giving her until Jan 2010.

Being older and unfamiliar with dealing with HMRC she paid up immediately. As far as I'm concerned they bullied her into paying early because they're desperate for taxpayers' cash. And it was only £130!

A rant shared is a rant doubled! :redface:

[*Lexxy*]

i've just had the red letter dated 16.04.10 through our door today too! pretty strongly worded, coming to collect out 'chatels' & various other possessions...

i got through to the 0845 (chesterfield office) no. on the 2nd attempt - why have we had this letter? i arranged to pay by the end of April through the business payment support service AND also advised this when someone from the VAT office called chasing it??

pleasant enough collections man apologised & said the system doesn't work the correct way sometimes, just ignore the reminder. i did say that i thought it was the people operating the system that caused a few problems too, he laughed & said something about HMRC not investing money in their systems or his pay! :D

shock! HMRC employee with a sense of humour! whatever next...

[Jenni384]

shock! HMRC employee with a sense of humour! whatever next...

Yeah some of them are actually nice. I like it when that happens. Some of them are not. It's all pot luck :)

[Paul Norman]

A customer of mine, for whom I did some business consultancy, actually had a collector turn up on the door. Again, because they were uncertain of their ground, they paid.

Later, it turned out that they did not owe the money.

It took 3 years of arguing to recover the money. With no interest. And no apology.

[writecombination]

HMRC are having one of those days!

Last month my wife, bookkeeper for a local business, set up an arrangement with HMRC to spread their corporation tax payments over 6 months.

This morning she was called by HMRC demanding to know why they hadn't paid in full. She explained about the agreement and they confirmed it was in place and apologised.

This afternoon HMRC called again and once more demanded to know why they hadn't paid the Corporation Tax in full. My wife explained that not only did they have an agreement to spread payments, and she'd already dealt with that query once today. HRMC checked their systems and confirmed all of this.

No wonder all the political parties claim they can save money through improving efficiency in the public sector!

[*Lexxy*]

very similar experience to ours writecombination, the time & money wasted by the same/different departments not updating records, details not checked etc. - a privately run company would be bust by now!

[Homshaw]

I had one client who was really ill. (he was so ill I didn't charge him)

A year later I tried to contact him to do his tax return. I could not do so.

I received an agent's copy of a £100 fine notice addressed to XXXXXXXXXX - deceased

If a relative receives such a notice I can imagine they would be distraught

[Geoff T]

pleasant enough collections man apologised & said the system doesn't work the correct way sometimes, just ignore the reminder. i did say that i thought it was the people operating the system that caused a few problems too, he laughed & said something about HMRC not investing money in their systems or his pay! :D

shock! HMRC employee with a sense of humour! whatever next...

Must've been a credit controller in a previous life...;)

[semsley]

I got a letter today informing me that the company was due a refund of xxxx. The figure was wrong as it was the March refund less the January payment, which we had paid in January.

I think it came about because we filed on-line in January and paid the same day by bacs. Then when we went to do the March return the January return was still open. I rang the helpline and they told me to resubmit the January return. I am now wondering if they have taken the January return twice.

Anyway the letter said if we thought the figure was wrong we should ring our local VAT office. Only trouble is I can't find the number of our local VAT office, I googled and got our local Inland Revenue who said they know nothing about VAT (what a surprise as they are supposed to be integrated now aren't they) and they gave me the 0845 number, which I rang went through the menu and then was cut off. C'est la vie, I'll try again tomorrow.