The postman delivered a letter today which was in a large brown envelope so I knew it was official. When I saw the address on the back I knew it was very official because it came from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. Not too long ago I am sure you will remember that this lot claimed that many thousands of us had either paid to much tax or not enough so eagerly hoping that I was in the first category, I opened it up.
What I read was enough to give someone of a delicate disposition like myself a heart attack. After a sharp intake of breath and a few choice expletives that I wouldn't repeat in company, I checked the name and address just to make sure that it had been delivered to the right person but sadly, it had.
When I had gathered myself together, I scanned through the document and then looked at the figures. Now I retired some eighteen months ago and I have always kept them informed of any change of circumstance, of which there have been none, and trusted my former employers, the Department for Work and Pensions to deduct the right amount of tax from my wages every month because after all, I'm not a tax expert. The money I owe them in tax is a substantial amount which is owed for the tax year starting April 2009 to April 2010 and when I only worked from April to July, I can't quite understand where they got this outrageous figure from.
There is one figure on there that puzzles me and that is a supposed bank/building society account which is paying me a couple of thousand pounds interest every year on which I have paid tax. However, I don't have a building society account and there is only a few pounds in my bank account so I am going to go through all my tax statements this weekend and I will phone them on Monday. I want to know where this so called account is so that I can get hold of the enormous amount of capital that is earning me all this interest and if they still insist I owe them this money I wonder if they have tried getting blood out of a stone!
They can't have what I haven't got!
Hi Grandma!
ReplyDeleteSounds like you've become the victim of a clerical error. I'm sure it will work itself out. Sadly, you'll receive no compensation for the stress they've obviously caused you.
Hi Robin!
ReplyDeleteI checked with HMRC yesterday and as I retired at the end of July in 2009 the new tax code that they sent me was not allowed to be used because of a change in coding that had been passed in a budget some eighteen months before. By the time the new codings were issued and implemented it left a shortfall which accumulated until the end of the tax year. We had been warned that if we had retired in the previous twelve months we could be affected, but anyway, I have come to an arrangement to cover the shortfall after Christmas.