Late penalty notices anyone?

Late penalty notices anyone?

Didn't find your answer?

Have had 5 phonecalls in under 24 hours from different clients who have received late penalty notices!!

These are returns that I handed in personally on the 30th Jan and the lovely lady on the reception desk would NOT sign for or stamp my drop off sheet.

I am dreading answering the phone - as each new call seems to be a client having a rant that I haven't filed their returns on time.

So, not only, do I now have to spend precious time contacting HM R&C and trying to resolve this but also I have to spend time placating clients who think that I have not done what I have promised to do (file on time). So to add to everything else I now have to worry about the damage that the HM R&C are doing.....potentially my reputation could be damaged .....................am furious!!

I know it is what was expected but - words just fail me right now.

Sorry for the rant!
Kay Weston

Replies (23)

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By EddieBull
03rd Mar 2006 18:12

This might help
We too hand delivered some of our 2005 Tax Returns to HMRC's Twickenham office on 31 January and, despite requesting them, weren't given any receipts. This week we (aaarrrgghhh!) have received penalty notices for many of these same TRs.

However, we've discovered that the notices have been issued based on the date the TRs have been logged by HMRC, not the date received that's been physically stamped on the TRs.

Insist on receiving a callback from the Service Area of the Tax Office that actually has the TRs and tell them to check the actual date received stamped on the TR. If the date received stamp is on or before 31 Jan. HMRC should then reverse the penalty notice and may even write you a letter of apology!

I hope that this helps.

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By johnnairne
04th Mar 2006 12:36

Self assessment online inaccuracies
Just checking clients tax returns positions on the online self assessment only to find that one client (who was filed by first class post recorded delivery on 27/01/06)was being charged a late return penalty. Checked Royal Mail records found delivery had gone through promptly. Tried in vain to contact local office (it really is appalling). Contacted online helpdesk and they said it had been filed on time after all - most bizarre !

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By jbrameld
02nd Mar 2006 18:13

Same Problems
I have also received a late penaly notice,although it was filed on time and they can't deny receiving it as the cheque for £37 that went with it has been cashed.

I also can't get through on the phone (always engaged) - I wonder if they are flooded with calls about incorrect penalty notices?

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By Hampson
03rd Mar 2006 08:21

64-8
We have only had one inaccurate late penalty so far - Return received on 24th January according to the Revenue AND a repayment due so no penalty should have been charged in any event.

What worries me more is the lack of drive to make the 64-8 system and electronic agents authorisation. With regard to the former I am still waiting for a 64-8 sent in May 2005 (& duplicates sent since) to be processed. The delay in dealing with paper 64-8's now seems to be about 6 weeks. FBI2's (agent authority
for PAYE online) sent to the EBU only take about 72 hours.

Electronic authorisation is a brilliant idea when it works. But this apparently excludes cases where there is an existing agent - the security checks required here mean there is no option other than to file a paper 64-8

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By User deleted
01st Mar 2006 15:21

The best yet?
Our client has sent in a penalty notice, for their father, for not filing a 2004/2005 tax return. Our client's father died 6 years ago, which was before we started to act for our client . When we rang the IR they would not talk to us as we did not have a 64-8 and said we would have to write and they would then review where the error arose!

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By John Savage
01st Mar 2006 15:37

Response to Andy Reeves.
I've been charging the Revenue for their mistakes for the past three years. My experience is that once they accept it was their fault they insist on my client paying me and then they reimburse the client - well, OK, fine by me, if that is the way they want to deal with it.

On a couple of occasions, where the mistake has been a monumentally brilliant one (and there have been some real beauts!!), they have paid me direct and also paid my clients compensation. It is always my policy to accompany the letter sent to them outlining their mistake with my invoice.

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By User deleted
28th Feb 2006 23:05

It drives me MAD
I too have had penalty notices for Returns filed on-line (which I have the online acknowledgements for)!!!

As we all know to our clients it makes us look incompetant.

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By Claire Kelly
01st Mar 2006 13:06

penalty notices
Like all of us I have received a bunch of penalty notices (some for returns which I know have not been filed due to client's failure to provide information and others for clients for whom we no longer act - maybe they will come back!!)
However one notice was a surprise as it related to one of my closed cases. In September when I had received no replies to correspondence for some of my elderly clients who then told me they had not got a return I telephoned each district quoting their references and asked them to confirm if a return/notice to file had been issued. When I obtained such confirmation I placed a note on the file and closed the file for the year.
On receiving the penalty notice this morning I was told that whoever I spoke to in HMRC must not have made a note of my call and they could only apologise for the fact that I had been given the incorrect information but a return had in fact been issued and a penalty was due. Hopefully this client will as in previous years be in a repayment situation and the penalty will not be due (although I plan to appeal if that is not the case) but meanwhile I have now got to go back to her and tell her that a return is in fact due and also try to calm her worries about the penalty.
I am now going through my client list on the HMRC website to make sure that everyone is active on it so that I can check up there in future. For anyone with no access to the website I would suggest getting confirmation in writing from now on as obviously a telephone call cannot be relied on

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By User deleted
01st Mar 2006 13:53

Next year
I'm afraid that Shorty's idea about getting a receipt for cheques won't work next year - the local revenue offices won't be offering "Banking Facilities"

In fact, they won't eist after 6 March this year according to the latest edition of Working together.

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By Taxcon
01st Mar 2006 14:23

Avoiding late filing penalties
Isn't the obvious answer to use the Royal Mail's guaranteed delivery service? That's what I do with my own return. One then has traceable delivery criteria (and someone to claim gainst if it doesn't arrive). I'd have thought each client would be willing to fund the tiny disbursement involved.

One then has the additional delicious pleasure of knowing that someone in the Revenue has had to sign for it and not just dodged their responsibilities as public servants.

I don't think we've yet reached the stage where the Revenue refuse to sign for post from the Royal Mail although following this posting I wouldn't be surprised to find that they found a way!

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By User deleted
01st Mar 2006 14:34

Working "Together" ???
Probably to be shortly renamed "We tell you what we're gonna do and you'll just have to put up with it!"

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By John Savage
01st Mar 2006 14:43

Penalty notice received today...
for a partnership which was only started on 1st October 2005!!! Two partners also got one each as well, total penalties - £300.

Oh well, another letter to bang off to the Revenue, with, I may add, my invoice for the work done!! (It is not up to my clients to pay my fees sorting out Revenue [***]-ups, and if we're going to 'work together'....)

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By User deleted
01st Mar 2006 14:47

Back to school
If Nicola doesn't wish to appear incompetent, she might at least learn how the word is spelt.

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By Andy Reeves
01st Mar 2006 15:21

Partnerships
The batch of penalty notices received today was as expected for all personal tax clients. However, as with last year, HMRC still do not seem to be able to register partnership cessations on their system properly and we have had penalty notices for four of them. All ceased in 2003/04 and the dates were shown on the relevant returns (filed online), including my own firm which ceased operating through a partnership in October 2003 when we incorporated!

Has anyone had any luck in getting HMRC to pay their fees for dealing with these [***]-ups? I am in a bad mood today as I am doing a particularly tiresome audit and I feel like sending a snotty letter.

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By Caber Feidh
01st Mar 2006 15:49

Royal Mail deliveries
Andrew Gotch made the sound suggestion of using the Royal Mail guaranteed delivery service for returns. Do not rely on their recorded delivery service. I used it eight times last year for private business and Royal Mail lost two of them.

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By kitsonj.aol.com
02nd Mar 2006 09:52

Late Penalty Notices
We have received some penalty notices, some right some wrong. We have one notice for a client where on the Revenue website it states that his return was received on 31 January. We tried to telephone the Revenue but the line was always engaged. Do other people have that problem? Also the Revenue website is awful!! Dreadfully slow and sometimes not opening up.

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By AnonymousUser
01st Mar 2006 13:03

We've had a batch in today, which look to me to be about 75% correct and 25% in error. The errors look less than the previous year, but are probably 2% of our overall January submissions of returns.

 

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By aidan.sergent
01st Mar 2006 17:25

This is the Revenue's idea of Customer Service
Isn't the simple answer that yet again the Revenue have issued penalties from Cumbernauld/Shipley or wherever BEFORE the Districts have fully processed those Returns received on or before 31st Jan?
This certainly is what happened last year.

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By stratty
01st Mar 2006 12:48

31st submission
We have had a few cases where TR's have been submitted 31st Jan but we have received a penalty.

Thing is when we speak with the tax office they confirm the TR as received 31st Jan.

I do not think the tax office know what is going on themselves.

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By Malcolm Veall
01st Mar 2006 15:33

Electronic Authorisation codes - Conspiracy Theory
I also had authorisation codes sent to clients just too late for 31st January, on the same day although the dates of requests for them differed.

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By AnonymousUser
28th Feb 2006 10:54

online authorisation
This year I tried to lodge all returns online. Any new clients signed the 64-8
and this was sent to central processing eight weeks laters clients had still not appeared on system. I then filled in online authorisation by then this was now early January. All codes are supposed to be sent out within seven days. Clients received codes 2nd February meaning paper returns had to be posted. Any one else having these problems


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By User deleted
28th Feb 2006 10:17

I had this last year
I had exactly this last year!

We filed about 450 returns only to have 200 late filing notices. Like you they were hand delivered all be it on the 31st.

My clients went ballistic and when all the shouting and turmoil died I had lost about £10-15k worth of fees because of the incompetence of the IR, together with lord knows how much chargeable time!

What I did do was: I wrote to all my clients telling them what was happening as soon as I realised what was going on and set out the course of action I was going to take.

I contacted the IR and prepared duplicates of all those returns I knew to be missing and I contacted our local office "customer relationship manager" who prepared an apology to me and my clients which I again circulated.

I also sent everyone the responses I had to a posting just like yours and a story which was ran by Accountingweb about this issue this time last year.

Finally, I invested time and energy in getting this years returns to be mainly filed electronically.

Regards

Rob Newman

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By User deleted
01st Mar 2006 13:04

Pain in the proverbial
We just got a stack load today!
Most relate to hand delivered returns on 30th or 31st, which like above were not stamped as received (although if you had put cheques on the list they stamped it as a form of receipt - something to remember for next year!)

We also have a problem with alleged missing partnership returns even though they ceased in the previous year (or earlier!)

As yet most client's involved have resisted biting back, so i'm dealing with the HMRC in a calm manner!!

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