{"id":6558,"date":"2019-01-21T17:46:07","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T17:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/hmrc-error-hits-early-filing-taxpayers\/"},"modified":"2019-01-21T17:46:07","modified_gmt":"2019-01-21T17:46:07","slug":"hmrc-error-hits-early-filing-taxpayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/hmrc-error-hits-early-filing-taxpayers\/","title":{"rendered":"HMRC error hits early-filing taxpayers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"TaxImage copyright<\/span>
\n Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

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Red-faced tax officials have been forced to apologise today for two embarrassing mistakes over late-payment fines.<\/p>\n

Last weekend HM Revenue and Customs denied fining taxpayers for failing to submit their self-assessment returns online – even though the deadline is still almost two weeks away.<\/p>\n

But on Monday HMRC admitted that some people have been wrongly charged.<\/p>\n

It has promised to cancel the penalty charges and apologised for the error.<\/p>\n

Bogus charges<\/h2>\n

Some 653 people who submitted their tax returns by the start of January were hit by the bogus late-payment penalty charges.<\/p>\n

They received letters from HMRC telling them they’d missed the deadline and so had to pay a penalty of \u00a3100, even though many had submitted returns almost a month ahead of the 31 January deadline.<\/p>\n

Accountancy firm Blick Rothenberg reported that a few of its clients had received such letters. <\/p>\n

It said one received a notice they’d be fined after submitting their return electronically earlier this month.<\/p>\n

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Serious mistake<\/h2>\n
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Image copyright<\/span>
\n Dan Neidle<\/span><\/p>\n

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Dan Neidle submitted his information online at the beginning of January, but then was shocked to receive a letter telling him he’d been fined even though he’d submitted the return early. <\/p>\n

Ironically, he’s a tax partner at the international law firm Clifford Chance.<\/p>\n

Mr Neidle said: “I thought, oh no not again, as they did it to me last year even though I filed on time. The difference this time was that I had filed weeks earlier.”<\/p>\n

He said that the fine is yet to be cancelled and that he is looking forward to receiving an apology, which “I intend to frame!”<\/p>\n

More seriously, he warned that as a tax partner, getting the wrong penalty notice was “something I can deal with.”<\/p>\n

“But if it was sent to normal taxpayers, particularly vulnerable people, that would be much more serious.”<\/p>\n

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Back-track<\/h2>\n

When approached by the BBC about the errors, HMRC went on the offensive, insisting that no penalty notices had been sent to customers doing their self-assessment online. <\/p>\n

In a strongly-worded statement HMRC said: “Any assertion we have sent early penalty notices to customers doing their returns online is false”.<\/p>\n

But on Monday it was forced into an embarrassing back-track after discovering that there was a problem.<\/p>\n

Specifically, it said that hundreds of people who had made online returns for trusts that they manage, that were processed on 2 January, were wrongly sent a late-payment fine of \u00a3100.<\/p>\n

An HMRC spokesperson said: “Due to human error in processing some online trust returns a small number of trustees or agents have been inadvertently issued with late filing penalties.” <\/p>\n

It said all affected returns had been identified and the late filing penalties cancelled. <\/p>\n

The spokesperson added: “We apologise for any issues this may have caused our customers and are writing to them directly to let them know.”<\/p>\n

Robert Pullen, a partner at Blick Rothenberg, said: “I’m pleased that HMRC has finally admitted there’s been a mistake.<\/p>\n

“The mistake was bad enough, affecting as it did more than 600 people, but if something went really wrong it could hit thousands or millions.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source<\/a> by [author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright Getty Images Red-faced tax officials have been forced to apologise today for two embarrassing mistakes over late-payment fines. Last weekend HM Revenue and Customs denied fining taxpayers for failing to submit their self-assessment returns online – even though the deadline is still almost two weeks away. But on Monday HMRC admitted that some … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}