Fury as HMRC tells taxpayers 'check your own taxcode' or face a fine for our mistakes

[Michael Browne]

Revenue & Customs is facing a growing storm of protest over plans to force taxpayers to take responsibility for checking their tax code.

 

Accountants and tax campaigners are calling on the Revenue to reverse the proposals, which they argue will make taxpayers pay for mistakes made by the taxman.

 

The row revolves around Extra Statutory Concession A19 – part of the Revenue’s rule book. This rule means taxes can be waived if a taxpayer supplied all the necessary information, but tax officials failed to use it promptly and correctly in calculating their tax bill.

 

The rule simply requires that a taxpayer must ‘reasonably have believed’ their tax affairs were in order.

 

The Revenue has proposed changing the rules and replacing the emphasis on reasonable belief with ‘taxpayers responsibilities’, requiring taxpayers to check their own tax codes.

Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2183751/Fury-Revenue--Customs-tells-taxpayers-check-code.html#ixzz22mRpU9JN

[honeybee13]

Thank you for posting this.

 

I really hope this doesn't happen. Very few people seem to understand their tax code and I agree with what is said about the letter that tells you what your code is being gobbledygook.

 

It seems to be a very unfair move by HMRC.

 

HB

[Gbarbm]

I don't know what the taxpayers alliance will make if this.

In the Inland Revenue (IR) staff used to treat taxpayers fairly and assist them in claiming the tax allowances they were entitled to. However, when IR merged with Customs & Excise (C&E) there was a sea change in the attitudes within the organisation, due, I believe, to placing C&E staff in high ranking positions. This was compounded by getting rid of experienced staff as part of the staff cuts, installing IT systems that were cumbersome and inefficient, making it more difficult for staff to do their jobs and the training if staff went from excellent (tutor led sessions delivered by staff who had done the job) to on line sessions consisting of tick boxes.

It seems to me that all organisations; the NHS, education, the police and now HMRC, expect members of the public to be experts in all areas because they themselves are not!

I really despair when I read things like this.

Thank goodness we have sites such as CAG, where people can come to for advice and help