ECS A19 - does it apply?

possibly

If you look in the "Cutting Tax" section of moneysavingexpert.com there have been numerous Esc A19 posts on there, many involving finger-pointing between HMRC and employers.

Note also that in my view - including my experience with clients - HMRC routinely bounce most Esc A19 letters, in much the same way as banks handled complaints before million pound fines started getting dished out.

Most cases require at least 3 letters - if not 5 or 6 !!! - before HMRC cave in.  One pointer as to whether your case has been looked at properly is whether the HMRC letter mentions figures and words specific to your client - or is it potentially just a generic "Esc A19 rejection" letter?

The one Esc A19 case I've had - which I won or at least they seem to have given up which may or may not be the same thing, and it goes back to August 2010 - in my view they only bothered to read my letter properly at the third time of sending when it was clear I was not caving in.

Let's hope so

I have almost the same situation going on at the moment - same years, same time of contact - difference is that client was receiving pension rather than employment but still under PAYE and all returns completed on time according to pension fund.

I've got down the A19 route.  I got an initial rejection stating they had not had any information about my client (fairly generic wording).  The pension fund have since confirmed they notified via P46 at the time, so I have sent this confirmation back and await developments.

80% / 20%

If you look at my posts on moneysavingexpert - under chrismac1 - you'll see that I have massively annoyed some of the resident HMRC posters on the site.  I think fundamentally it really annoys them that taxpayers are "getting off" their tax bills, and they can't see that raising a bill 3-4 years down the line is really pretty unacceptable.

So whilst strictly they are quite correct in what they are saying about the Esc A19 rules, in practice my own case which has been dropped, plus various other cases which have come up on the site, plus some I know of from accountants locally, demonstrate that in the end HMRC will back down and permit Esc A19 where the taxpayer has taken "reasonable care" and the employer and HMRC have mucked things up between them.  Or just drop the case quietly.

My own case was a doctor, exactly the sort of higher rate taxpayer the HMRC posters get seriously aggrieved about.  In his last year before qualifying he had worked for 6 different GP practices.  As I said to him, the obvious way to handle this - as my last employer did - is to have his contract of employment at Practice 1 who then second him out - and second out 1 FTE of their books and recharge the payroll cost - to Practices 2 to 6.

But no.  It's a P45 every time, bad enough but they were so slow that Practice 2 issued his P45 when he'd already finished at Practice 3 and gone to Practice 4.  So that tax year was a total mess with D0 codes, BR codes and utter chaos.  Just working out his gross pay for the tax year was wading through treacle, never mind the tax.

So this guy has paid not a bean of the tax demanded of him 3 years plus down the line.  I wrote them two letters on Esc A19, the last being August 2010.  Although the case is not closed, neither has there been any correspondence during 2011.  So although technically not a win, it's as good as a win if my client never has to write a cheque.