bloody taxman

[macky]

Actually I think you'll find this mistake is actually one of the millions reported a couple of months ago where HMRC issued the wrong tax codes so you can't blame the employers.

HMRC are one of the most useless government departments partly because they use EDS as their IT supplier.

And you can't blame these mistakes on the present government as it happened under the previous governments watch.

You could ignore the demand - there is a rumour that HMRC don't have the resources to chase but obviously it's your call. I know two people who have ignored demands and never heard anything again.

dont think she can do that
i think they are going to take it straight from her earnings

 

[Poyetry In Motion]

my wife has just got a letter from the taxman saying she owes
£1700 to be paid back at £100 a month
thing is shes on a low wage as it is
she was on paye why should she have to pay for their mistake?
i feel like telling her to pack in and go on the dole xman

My wife and I share your pain/frustration/fear/anguish
We're about to be clobbered for the tax year 07-08
The thieving bar stewards want another 500 sovs out of us

You know the old adage about death and taxes.....

 

[Vankleek Hill Seagull]

Well, it's part of HP now and I'm sure the EDS employees are having an unpleasant time of it - HP is very keen on keeping costs down.

Damn right we are. I worked for a small software company that specialized in global life insurance and wealth management software and were a wholly owned subsidiary of EDS. They became an internal EDS department in 2005 and then became part of HP when they bought EDS.

The one thing that has stayed the same though is the drive for outsourcing / offshoring, etc. Does the UK government / vendor really think that someone in Bangalore knows anything about UK tax rules and regulations. No, they know jack shit and then they wonder why projects over-run, triple in scope and budget and deliver nothing like what was expected.

We constantly have this argument with upper management who don't seem to understand our business. Our clients want experienced professionals but management want to throw cheap rookie workers at them to make as much profit as possible.

Where major projects are concerned, pick two out of the following three.

Cheap, Good, Quick. (You can't have all three).

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Does the UK government / vendor really think that someone in Bangalore knows anything about UK tax rules and regulations.

Of course that's what they think - that's why they give so much business to Capita now and their Indian call centres are dire !

 

[thekinglives]

my wife has just got a letter from the taxman saying she owes
£1700 to be paid back at £100 a month
thing is shes on a low wage as it is
she was on paye why should she have to pay for their mistake?
i feel like telling her to pack in and go on the dole xman

If it's only £1700 why not just send a cheque rather drawing it out and paying £100 a month? I mean, it's hardly life changing amount of money

 

[Gazwag]

my wife has just got a letter from the taxman saying she owes
£1700 to be paid back at £100 a month
thing is shes on a low wage as it is
she was on paye why should she have to pay for their mistake?
i feel like telling her to pack in and go on the dole xman

That's a lot of tax underpaid for a low wage or has she only just gone onto a low wage.

The thing is many people are ignorant (not meant in a nasty way) of their tax code when they whouldn't be. To often people receive letter from HMRC and because they do understand then they just get ignored.

It is very important not to take HMRC's word for it and check their figures to make sure they are correct, if necessary pay an accountant to check the figures and sort it out with HMRC.

 

[Freddie Goodwin.]

You can appeal (there is a form) if you feel that you've done nothing wrong and have informed HMRC of all changes along the way. Anyone who has been PAYE with the same employer shouldn't have these coding problems unless they had other benefits, like company cars etc.

I have heard (from a source!) that many of the forms detailing changes in those benefits were given low priority and then, with so many offices being closed, a lot of said forms were not processed and probably binned so merely arguing the case may be enough to get it dropped.

Mr Cock-up came to town, big time.

 

[Arthur]

my wife has just got a letter from the taxman saying she owes
£1700 to be paid back at £100 a month
thing is shes on a low wage as it is
she was on paye why should she have to pay for their mistake?
i feel like telling her to pack in and go on the dole xman

Would you have started a similar thread if she'd been over paying and had received a refund for £1700?

 

[macky]

Would you have started a similar thread if she'd been over paying and had received a refund for £1700?

incompetence is incompetence
f*** me it works out at 10% of what they said she earned
when the tax man owed me money i never did get it
they said i hadnt sent corect forms etc
and to answer you yes i would at the end of the day im paying for a service
that is beyond poor

 

[drew]

I phrased that badly - yes a Tory government signed the contract with EDS.

The mistakes in tax codes happened under the Labour Government.

So labour are expected to check every single computer program. It's marvellous, because we keep hearing how the Tories are blaming everything on the last Government but when the boot is on the other foot, ie Labour are saddled with a computer firm signed up by the previous Tory government it is stillt their fault.

Besides, I thought the reason that these tax arrears were now being collected was due to the fact that there is now a new system in place that is checking the previous codes and finding errors. Are you going to claim that within the last 5 months the Torys have procured a new infallible system and had it rolled out at HMRC or could it be that the previous government had something to do with it!

Anyway, part of the problem is that HMRC is under resourced due to massive staff cuts started under labour and which will be exacerbated by the Tory austerity measures. Last year the uncollected tax bill went up by about £6b to (I think) about £46b. Add to that the tax avoided by the rich in excess of £150b and hey presto the deficit gone with a little bit of loose change left over!!!

Finally, with regard to Macky, she's your wife. If you are in employment then surely you can help meet the additional burden until it is paid off!

 

[Acker79]

Can't she just offer to pay back £340 over five years (less than £5.70 a month). Worked for portsmouth.

 

[WATFORD zero]

You can appeal (there is a form) if you feel that you've done nothing wrong and have informed HMRC of all changes along the way. Anyone who has been PAYE with the same employer shouldn't have these coding problems unless they had other benefits, like company cars etc.

I have heard (from a source!) that many of the forms detailing changes in those benefits were given low priority and then, with so many offices being closed, a lot of said forms were not processed and probably binned so merely arguing the case may be enough to get it dropped.

Mr Cock-up came to town, big time.

HMRC are up to their ears in backlog. I believe that the P11d's (expense) forms for at least the last couple of years haven't been processed either, so arguing your case and being a bit of a nuisance could well prove too much hassle for them.

Just as well they are going to get cut further in the new round of efficiencies

 

[Bob!]

...

The thing is many people are ignorant (not meant in a nasty way) of their tax code when they whouldn't be. To often people receive letter from HMRC and because they do understand then they just get ignored.

....

what?

 

[Westdene Seagull]

So labour are expected to check every single computer program. It's marvellous, because we keep hearing how the Tories are blaming everything on the last Government but when the boot is on the other foot, ie Labour are saddled with a computer firm signed up by the previous Tory government it is stillt their fault.

Besides, I thought the reason that these tax arrears were now being collected was due to the fact that there is now a new system in place that is checking the previous codes and finding errors. Are you going to claim that within the last 5 months the Torys have procured a new infallible system and had it rolled out at HMRC or could it be that the previous government had something to do with it!

Anyway, part of the problem is that HMRC is under resourced due to massive staff cuts started under labour and which will be exacerbated by the Tory austerity measures. Last year the uncollected tax bill went up by about £6b to (I think) about £46b. Add to that the tax avoided by the rich in excess of £150b and hey presto the deficit gone with a little bit of loose change left over!!!

Finally, with regard to Macky, she's your wife. If you are in employment then surely you can help meet the additional burden until it is paid off!

So you're suggesting, that despite the over 15 years of Labour government, it was the fault of the Tory government that incorrect tax was collected ? Despite the contract being 10 years there was a break option at 7 years at so Labour had an opportunity in both 2001 and 2004 to correct any issues.

Having worked on a number of government contracts it's amazing how clueless the government ( and I mean of any colour ) and it's officers are. They rarely know what they want and often are unable to provide detailed statement of works. All they tend to be interested is how cheaply a service can be provided. Government departments refuse to talk to each other and never want a supplier to tell another government department that they are even doing business with said supplier. If they actually worked together when they buy similar services they would get better value and better service.

When they hand over services to a supplier it becomes obvious that millions of pounds are wasted internally. For example, recently part of the health department outsourced its IT and back office processes to a supplier. It was spending millions a year on wide area network connections but nobody could confirm what they had - they just paid the bill trusting that the telco was charging correctly. Top of the list for incompetence is the MOD.

No where did I suggest that the Tories had magically solved the problem - what I pointed out was that the problem arose under Labours watch and they had ample time to fix it. Even if they noticed it in 2004 it shouldn't have taken 6 years to fix. Now the people who suffer are taxpayer - not the government, not the government officials who should have been overseeing the supplier and not the supplier.

 

[Gazwag]

what?

Sorry if I was'nt clear. Many people don't understand what a tax code is and what theirs should be therefore more people need to learn about them. Because they don't undrstand them when they receive coding notices from HMRC they ignore them.

 

[macky]

Sorry if I was'nt clear. Many people don't understand what a tax code is and what theirs should be therefore more people need to learn about them. Because they don't undrstand them when they receive coding notices from HMRC they ignore them.

i could understand what you were saying if people were self employed
but i think most on paye dont want to hassle of it all
i might be wrong but i really thought it was the taxmans job
to sort this out before it got out of hand

 

[Gazwag]

i could understand what you were saying if people were self employed
but i think most on paye dont want to hassle of it all
i might be wrong but i really thought it was the taxmans job
to sort this out before it got out of hand

At the end of the day it is an individuals responsibilty to ensure that their tax code is correct and as far as HMRC is concern ignorance is not an excuse.

Because employees believe their payroll dept/HMRC is correct they don't question it and I agree don't want the hassle of it

 

[Chicken Runner61]

Look we are all in this together......

 

[drew]

So you're suggesting, that despite the over 15 years of Labour government, it was the fault of the Tory government that incorrect tax was collected ? Despite the contract being 10 years there was a break option at 7 years at so Labour had an opportunity in both 2001 and 2004 to correct any issues.

Having worked on a number of government contracts it's amazing how clueless the government ( and I mean of any colour ) and it's officers are. They rarely know what they want and often are unable to provide detailed statement of works. All they tend to be interested is how cheaply a service can be provided. Government departments refuse to talk to each other and never want a supplier to tell another government department that they are even doing business with said supplier. If they actually worked together when they buy similar services they would get better value and better service.

When they hand over services to a supplier it becomes obvious that millions of pounds are wasted internally. For example, recently part of the health department outsourced its IT and back office processes to a supplier. It was spending millions a year on wide area network connections but nobody could confirm what they had - they just paid the bill trusting that the telco was charging correctly. Top of the list for incompetence is the MOD.

No where did I suggest that the Tories had magically solved the problem - what I pointed out was that the problem arose under Labours watch and they had ample time to fix it. Even if they noticed it in 2004 it shouldn't have taken 6 years to fix. Now the people who suffer are taxpayer - not the government, not the government officials who should have been overseeing the supplier and not the supplier.

I'm not saying Labour aren't blameless but the implication was that it was all their fault just because it happened on their watch. You refer to the officers of the Government well these don't change when the Government does, they just have new masters. Now as far as the recent tax fiasco is concerned, isn't this due to a new system that has highlighted the errors and is then seeking to correct them, a system that came in under the labour tenure!

 

[adrian29uk]

Self employed and I have messed up my self assessment, namely ticking the box the class 4 contributions for the last 2 returns. That would be ok if I was over 65.

I now owe the IR about 5k including this years. It bloody hurts but I take full responsibility for it. I wont make the same mistake again.

But everyone who pays tax here, does is not really make you angry to think there are people earning and not paying any tax at all. When are we going to get a f*(king break?
I also fear for the future. Its scary to think there are people earning but cannot afford to live due to how expensive everything is.