In the last week I have received penalty notice determinations for non submission of 2010 P35 returns even though Nil returns were filed electroniaclly and HMRC issued confirmation emails acknowledging receipt. Am I alone? HMRC advise that there have been no general directions issued and that the appeals procedure has to be followed.
Julian Ansell
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Replies (12)
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yes we have a steady stream of them coming through
and will send a stock appeal letter against them all en masse once they stop arriving...
me too.
I have had one. I think I only filed two of these, maybe the other one was OK, or maybe there's another fine on the way.
Don't appeal - complain!
If the P35, nil or otherwise, has been filed by the deadline, any penalty levied by HMRC is illegal. So, don't humour them with an appeal - just put COMPLAINT at the top of your letter and tell them that they have broken the law, that your client will not be paying any illegal charges and ask them what part of the enclosed confirmation they do not understand.
Same here
I Had one this week with a £400 penalty which the client received and was straight on the phone to me.
It was filed on time and with the confirmation email.
When I spoke to the 'not so helpful desk' I was told I would still have to write a letter explaining and enclosing evidence. Which I did.
What a shambles this organisation is. And it is getting worse all the time.
If anyone of us or our clients ran our business like this then we would have gone bust a long time ago.
I have just spend 30 mins waiting to get through to them on another matter before hanging up frustrated.
You were lucky....
Sorry for the old comedy headline, but we've been getting a lot of posts about this issue during the past week. At almost the same time as this question was posted, another was posted on which members reported late filing penalties going back several years.
This topic was also raised by our new Isn't accountancy interesting blogger, who advises keeping records longer than the three years HMRC has been advising to defend yourselfs from similar situations.
You can keep track of the volume of complaints and successful appeal strategies by checking for similar items on the late filing penalty tag page.
And given the prevalence of problems, perhaps this is something we should escalate through our HMRC Working Together eGroup.
P35 - 2004/5
Client of mine received penalty notice in respect of 2004/5??? Now the client can not remember or trace back old details to file one. We are resorting to old Audit/Accounts files!!
-- kuhan
Late Filing Penalty
Had the same situation, including getting the electronic confirmation of filing. We did get through to someone helpful and were told the reason the penalty had been issued was that because there had been a payment / movement on the account during the year and therefore the nil return could not be accepted on the system. The problem was a filing incentive credited to the account. There did not appear to be a way of resolving the issue.
Yes, do appeal
I would contradict the advice given above about complaining. Letters marked "complaint" will probably receive less attention tham formal appeals which at least have some legal force. More importantly, your client cannot get compensation from HMRC unless they have incurred additional costs arising from HMRC errors or neglegence. Such costs obviously include accountancy fees for appeals. Just send a letter with copies of their confirmation e-mails or other info proving your case and include a copy of your invoice to the client billing them £100 or whatever for dealing with the matter. They will have to refund your client who can then pay you. Sadly there is no other way under current procedure for agents to recover their costs dealing with HMRC incompetence. But at least it might get the nitwits responsible for this idiocy to reflect on the consequences of their actions. It's just a shame they can't surcharge them and make them pay it our of their own salaries rather than the taxpayer footing the bill.
Chris
P35
likewise I too have recieved a P35 £400 fine for the only one of my clients who had a NIL return P35.
What's worse than all the time wasted phoning and writing to appeal the penalty, is that the client think's I've made a mistake, which discredits my service
Tim
Agent scorecards
Please do remember that HMRC plan to "score" agents in future and may use your score to make a determination of just how good you are. What odds would I get if I said that the subject of this thread may form part of the scoring system?
Old ones? What about new ones?
One of my clients got a P35 late filing penalty notice for 2009/10 when their company was only incorproated in July 2010!