Hi Just to let you know the hmrc approved my appeal and wiped the debt. Thanks again for everyone’s help.

Thank you to everyone who responded and helped, i apologise if my attitude has been off, just very stressed out. I appreciate everyone's help and will update the thread once i have my response.

Have done! Brilliant thanks.

I do indeed it's signed at the bottom, i will update my letter

I wasn't trying to offend you there, but i have always been taught to use "To whom is concerns" if i don't know the name Both could be right or wrong i suppose. Thanks for your suggestion though, it is appreciated.

Thanks for the suggestions, but i wouldn't ever start a letter with "Dear Sirs", that sounds like a foreigner wrote it. The "Yours Sincerely" part would be a good suggestion though, I am so used to writing emails with Kind Regards i forget i am actually writing a letter here. Thanks!!

Their advice was to write my appeal. HMRC are not helpful, i am trying to find out what years i was employed on PAYE, because i obviously registered as self employed at some point around that time, i don't remember why, it could be that i was intending on being self employed but then got a full time job instead.... so me not really knowing anything about how it works just assumed the HMRC would see that i am working for a company and i'm not self employed. they don't keep records that far back to give me on the phone, now i have to write yet another letter. How does this sound? To whom it concerns, I am responding to your letter dated 17th August 2017 regarding the alleged debt with HMRC. Please refer to your reference number above. I would like to inform you that this situation is currently in dispute with the HMRC, subsequently I will be paying nothing to your company (CCSCollect) while the situation is in dispute with the HMRC. Furthermore, once the dispute with HMRC is resolved, and If I do in fact owe the HMRC money, I will be paying directly to the HMRC. I have no need or requirement to discuss this with your company (CCSCollect) any further and will not be responding to any further correspondence. Kindest Regards

since i am working i can't read it properly, i'm really not understanding what it's tailing about and how that impacts my situation lol. Here are some details from my accountant Current amount due is £5,151.12, broken down as follows: Tax Penalties Interest Total Tax year 2009 £512.00 £200.00 £157.18 £869.18 Tax year 2011 £0.00 £1,600.00 £231.31 £1831.31 Tax year 2012 £0.00 £1,600.00 £182.50 £1782.50 Tax year 2013 £0.00 £610.00 £56.13 £666.13 Tax year 2015 £2.00 £0.00 £0.00 £2.00

I will have a look at the links what you sent this evening, because i don't know what you mean by "determination" in this case, or special relief. Yeh "sufficient reason" - in other words, unless you're pretty much dead, no mental illness or anything counts, even though mental stress is a massive problem.

What is a special relief? I know, i am becoming annoying Why would they relieve me from paying tax? Surely they are more likely to waver the penalties than the tax?

These debt companies like to keep pushing though don't they.

No no, i wasn't referring to you, someone was being pedantic regarding the wording i used since i am not actually speaking in legal terms, i am speaking in normal english. i assume i am actually now just going to have to suck it up, I made a huge error years ago, i personally see it that my life was in tatters and my only concern then was sorting my life out for mine and my kids sake, but legally i have no leg to stand on. Si am going to write to HMRC today and still explain the situation as an appeal, I imagine they will decline it, so after that i will proceed to make instalment arrangements with them that i can afford. After all, they can't take something i don't have and are not legally allowed to leave me in hardship, i imagine especially since i have kids. I will ignore CCS completely - even though i was advised to write to them by HMRC and tell them it's in dispute, but then others on here say ignore them, which I believe is better as to not give them ammunition or to prove who i am. And more advice on doing this would be welcomed, and i really appreciate you trying to help me. In a previous letter from hmrc they said that CCS are dealing with it now, but other people are saying to deal with HMRC and not CCS, i'm not sure what to do in this situation, do you think i should wait until CCS pass it back to HMRC?

I will ignore CCS on advice, but what if the HMRC refuse to make any arrangement because it's been passed to them? I fully understand that i don't have to deal with CCS at all as I have no obligation to them. I am starting to think that appealing this is just pointless, they won't care about my personal circumstances, just like number of people on here don't see it from my personal point of view; at the end of the day life circumstances and mental situations do in fact cause people to avoid and forget things. So i am looking for a suggestion, should i write to HMRC and just make an offer of monthly payments that I can afford to stick to? To others: I didn't come here to argue or be ridiculed, I came here for some help and to vent my frustrations, but a simple google search will show you quite a few bits of information on large corporations avoiding tax, whether it be legal or not it's not right that the little guy is always **** on. I really don't see what the relevance is on the word i used, evade and avoid mean pretty much the same thing in english so you know what i am talking about, i don't speak in legal jargon, you're just being pedantic.

I get your point, you're right, the size of the charges still feel extortionate, especially when large companies get away with tax evasion all the time.

I don't think legally they are being extortionate, i am actually referring to how i feel about the amount of money it is, it feels like extortion to me as it's not something i have done to be malicious.

i will have to ask my accountant tomorrow as all i have is one big figure.

I didn't realise that, my way of thinking was based on trying to submit a corporation tax return a few years earlier and it was asking for information that i hadn't a clue about. Obviously the self assessment is different so i admit I should have looked into it rather than assuming. I think the worst thing about this is that i feel i am now thousands of pounds in debt when i haven't gone out of my way to get debt, no loan, no credit card, nothing that i should be in debt for...but so it is that debt is made out of thin air. I could have handled a few hundred , but this is extortion - isn't it?

Thanks for the responses! I am sure i have seen HMRC registered as a company on companies house, could be wrong, haven't checked again. I don't owe any tax for the period as there was actually no work carried out under the self employment, i actually was employed by another company from 2008 - 2010. I was stupid to think the HMRC would realise this and would actually realise i wasn't self employed anymore...obviously i was wrong there. The reports were actually filed in 2015 i think after i had the letters reach me and sent them to my accountant, so no more charges are being applied. I have spoke to HMRC today and they advise that i write to a specific department with the address they gave me, along with information regarding my mental state at the time and the fact i have been on and off anti depressants for years. I just buried my head in the sand with this one as i was dealing with a very rough time in my life. I doubt they will accept my appeal, but they also said to write to the debt company and tell them i am in dispute with hmrc so i will not be dealing with them in the mean time. They recon they will likely pass the collection back to the HMRC due to not being able to chase me during a dispute. Since i was constantly moving address around 2010 i didn't receive any paperwork from the HMRC for quite a long time until i had managed to get back on my feet and my current business up and running. I had no fixed address, no money to pay an accountant and i have no idea how to do tax returns myself. It's a real messy situation, because from my perspective i have valid reasons to have not submitted the paper work, and i actually did resolve the issue as quickly as i could when i eventually did settle down and received the paper work when the HMRC caught up with me. Since 2012 all tax returns and payments have been made on time, i am hoping this will make them realise i didn't do this on purpose. Also sorry, it's not even about how long a return would take to do, i'm no accountant and i couldn't afford to pay one at the time. At the time my main focus was getting a place to live after leaving a family home and paying the court for contact with my daughter. So you can imagine my mental and emotional state wasn't concerned with a piece of paper, i was concerned with my daughter. Not to mention my head was completely screwed after a "relationship" with a narcissist. I forgot all about it, i didn't get any letters as i had no fixed address etc.... i know it might sound like it's not an excuse, but to me it was, mental health is a killer!

Hello Thank you in advance for any advice on my situation. Between 2009 and 2013 I was registered as self employed, in the earlier couple of years i was going through a stressful personal break up was having problems with work because of depression, also spending my money to go to court of access to my daughter. At the time I was couch surfing and frankly forgot all about tax returns. The HMRC fined me in total £4,524 over this period which I can't afford to pay. I find these charges extortionate, is this even legal for a start? All i did was not send in a piece of paper and now i am in this huge amount of debt? The last thing on my mind at that time of my life was filing a tax return especially when i had literally done no work or earned anything at the time - I certainly couldnt afford an accountant. Since then i started a limited company in 2012 which is still operating now and all tax returns are up to date for myself and my company, done via an accountant. All the old self employment returns have also been done and the self employment terminated as i am employed on PAYE by my own company. The HMRC have passed the debt to CCS collect. I wrote to the HMRC to try and appeal these extortionate charges based on what I have said above, but rather than responding to my appeal they just ignored it and wrote back to me with the figure I requested in the same letter. CCS already seem unreasonable in their initial letters, stating they want an "acceptable payment offer" - in my opinion acceptable is what I can afford, if this is £1 every week then that's what they should get. Am i correct in thinking that I should respond to CCS in writing rather than on the phone so i have written records of everything? And is it also right that they have to accept what I offer them on a monthly basis? I am thinking of £50 per month, which having a family of five to support is more than reasonable. I am writing back to HMRC today to request they actually respond to my letter properly rather than being totally ignorant. Finally, how on earth can a company, the HMRC, just make up these charges? They are just a company after all aren't they, and it's a ridiculous amount just because they didn't receive a piece of paper! Thanks