The lunatics have definitely taken over the asylum

The lunatics have definitely taken over the...

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  • Client owed refund of £1,600.
  • Refund pulled for random "security checks".
  • In the mean time HMRC issues threat of court action alleging client's Working Families Tax Credits overpaid by £150.
  • I contact HMRC suggesting that perhaps they should simply deduct the £150 from the refund and pay the balance of £1,450 to the client.
  • HMRC say they "cant do that as its a separate department".  They then say the refund will not be paid until they have received the £150 from the client.

So its a "separate department" when it suits them, but, not separate when it comes to blackmailing clients. 

Replies (18)

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By ACDWebb
08th Nov 2010 15:45

Don't read HMRC's Vision statement C_D

You may go POP!

http://www.number10.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/HMRC-FINAL-Business-Plan.pdf

 

Well it gave me a good laugh this afternoon

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Nichola Ross Martin
By Nichola Ross Martin
08th Nov 2010 16:11

POP

I cannot quite get over the fixation in that statement with ensuring that we can register with Co House at the same time as HMRC (do you think that this will create some huge cost savings??).

CD makes the point well, what we need are HMRC's systems to be joined up.

Why, why oh why didn't anyone appreciate this in designing the systems. Another thing that really upsets me is having to keep registering on various bit of the wretched Govt Gateway/Business link or whatever is going on (its not joined up thinking thats for sure). I don't know about you lot but I have an address book of IDs and passwords and I am going insane...POP too late, I'm booking into the funny farm.

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By cymraeg_draig
08th Nov 2010 16:24

B S

OK I just read it.

What a load of "male cow excrement" (B/S).

I wonder how much they paid some politically correct waste of space to churn out that load of tosh.  I can translate the whole document into one line to save everyone else the trouble of reading it.  It says quite simply - "we are going to find new ways to screw every penny out of the peasants whilst still allowing the mega rich to get away with it, and we will build and even bigger beaurocracy to stop the government sacking us poor little civil serpants".

 

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By Jason Dormer
08th Nov 2010 16:49

HMRC

Issue a threat of court action for the £1,600.00 :)

 

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By MarionMorrison
08th Nov 2010 17:20

More examples

A client has left safe employment to set up on their own through a company.  His P45 is copied to Student Loan Company (I didn't know they did that either).  SLC contact him for a UTR and when he says he hasn't been given one, they refuse to believe it saying that everyone is issued a UTR within 6 weeks.

SLC? Meet the Real World.

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By thomas34
08th Nov 2010 19:12

See You In Court
HMRC

Issue a threat of court action for the £1,600.00 :)

 

 

Posted by Jason Dormer on Mon, 08/11/2010 - 16:49

Funny you should mention that. Just preparing a Claim Form for £1,200 which equates to a penalty notice issued in 2007 (but not chased by HMRC until now) for alleged non-submission of a P35. Client is adamant that it was submitted on time and subsequently sent in duplicates but failed to formally appeal against the penalty within 30 days. HMRC are refusing to accept a late appeal even though they sat on the matter for three and a half years.

Legally they are within their rights since the 30 day rule was breached and furthermore they can enforce what is effectively a judgment by default. The taxpayer has less rights than a common criminal who can mount a defence or file an appeal. If anybody else can think of an alternative course of action please let me know cos my head's hurting.

 

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By petersaxton
08th Nov 2010 19:46

30 days not important

Whether you appeal within 30 days or not doesn't matter. They can't penalise you for not doing anything wrong.

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By David Richards
08th Nov 2010 20:59

Student Loans Company

For those that think HMRC are bad, SLC really do take the biscuit.

They added an admin charge on to my student loan to cover the 'costs of tracing my address' after they claimed that some post had been returned undelivered. Except I have never lived at the address they claimed they had written to. And the address they 'traced' me too was the address that I'd lived at all along - the address they already had on file. 11 years later (yes 11 years!) they still refuse to accept that they could possibly have made a mistake. And I still refuse to pay the charge.

The Students Loan Company. Staffed by people who make Frank Spencer and Norman Pitkin look organised and competent.

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By Jason Dormer
08th Nov 2010 21:06

Panarama

So did david Gauke tell 'Dave' to apologise or not?  Nice swerve!

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By petefa
09th Nov 2010 11:19

Debt Management & Banking Manual

The OP may find DMBM 70060 helpful. It suggests that the set-off can be made against tax credits if the taxpayer specifically requests this.

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By colinhigginson
09th Nov 2010 11:26

Separate departments?

 They do seem to apply rules selectively.

We have a client who has entered into an agreement with HMRC to spread their Corporation Tax. Last quarter he was due a VAT Refund and they offset this refund against the Corporation Tax.

 

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By pembo
09th Nov 2010 14:38

Joined up thinking

when it suits i.e. offsetting any liabilties against any refunds as the last post indicates...they've been exercising these powers of offset for some time.

Sorry ACDWebb but could only get to page 5 of the "Vision Statement" before I was violently sick and had to close the link and get some fresh air...you could not make it up could you....I thought Kieron Poynters hilarious 45 (or was it 46) point "response" to the missing disc fiasco was the ultimate in meaningless managementspeak bulls**t but this takes the art to a new level....

the older I get the more my mission statement vision aligns with a direction of travel converging on the next flight out of here.........

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By cymraeg_draig
09th Nov 2010 15:01

B/S

 

Sorry ACDWebb but could only get to page 5 of the "Vision Statement" before I was violently sick ......

tooltip();

 

Posted by pembo on Tue, 09/11/2010 - 14:38

 

You got as far as page 5 ?    I got into the third paragraph and my bullsh** meter was showing overload. I swear whoever writes these things must have been double glazing salesmen previously.  

And whilst on the subject of B/S - what the hell is a so called "mission statement" and exactly what is the point of it?  As far as I can see everyone writes them, they are totally meaningless, and just another example of the Americanised twaddle that infects our society. I've never yet seen one thats actually honest. Indeed I'd be much more impressed if I saw a "mission statement" by a company that actually stated the truth - "Our mission is to screw our customers for as much as possible whilst selling them inferior 3rd rate rubbish manufactured by slave labour in some God forsaken 3rd world country".  Now THAT I would believe.

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By pembo
09th Nov 2010 16:17

bit like

George W saying that waterboarding is not torture because "the lawyers told him it wasn't..."...duh...

its the old duck thing...if it looks sounds and smells like bull then its very likely is unless of course you are attempting the illusion of actually doing something through a smokescreen of utterly incomprehensible impenetrable meaningless jargon invented by idiots trying to justify their exhorbitant fees.....

remember a few years ago having to do a divorce share valuation for the wife...my "report" was a couple of pages and I charged about £500...the husband engaged one of the "big 4" who came up with this 50 page padded doorstop at a cost of  £10,000....guess who won the day...?

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By Democratus
09th Nov 2010 17:18

Tried to convert to English.

I gave up at the word strategy in the Mission Statement. See below

HM Revenue & Customs’ vision is: to close the tax gap[1]; to make our customers[2]  feel that the tax system is simple for them and even-handed; and to be seen as a highly professional and efficient organisation [3]. Our core purpose is to make sure that the money is available to fund the UK’s public services and help families and individuals with targeted financial support. By 2015, HM Revenue & Customs will become an administration that is at once more efficient, more flexible in dealing with customers and more effective in bringing in revenues. We will be smaller and more streamlined, as we remodel services for customers and invest in work against tax avoidance[4], evasion and fraud. We are using our customercentric[5] strategy[6] to deliver this transformation. Using our understanding of customers to focus our efforts where they will have the biggest effect, tailoring our services to the needs, abilities and motivations of our customers. In all that we do, we will work to ensure that everyone in the UK pays their fair share and support taxpayers to meet their responsibility to society by paying the tax that is due. [1] close the tax gap – this means to reduce the workload of the department by ignoring the difficult to collect tax and unfairly treating the entrepreneur, self employed, unrepresented and wealth creating SMEs by attempting to withhold tax refunds, erroneously issue fines and refuse to deal with queries in, what for any other organization would be deemed to be a reasonable time frame. [2] customer – clearly HMRC recognize that as customers we can shop around for a better, more efficient and “customer focussed” tax collection regime. Wait a minute that’s not correct. .  [3] highly professional and efficient organisation – this is clearly an oxymoron.  [4] tax avoidance- this is now something that is clearly spoken in the same terms as criminal activity.  [5] customercentric – clearly B*****it. [6] strategy - a carefully devised plan of action to achieve a goal, or the art of developing or carrying out such a plan. Track record of this organization would indicate that this is a highly optimistic use of the word. Interestingly in biological terms a strategy is a behaviour or adaptation that improves viability. Perhaps extinction is on the way and a newer more suited to the environment creature will take it’s place. HMRC Sapiens perhaps.  

 

 

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By ACDWebb
09th Nov 2010 17:40

To be fair

I did warn you NOT to look.

Mission statement - Wikipedia is your friend

 

Dilberts view of things

In fact so many of THESE work

 

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By thomas34
09th Nov 2010 17:59

Customer (underscore) Centric

What the ****'s that?

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By cymraeg_draig
09th Nov 2010 18:23

If only

[2] customer – clearly HMRC recognize that as customers we can shop around for a better, more efficient and “customer focussed” tax collection regime

 

Don't we wish !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

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