Has anyone had any success in appealing against a self assessment late payment penalty?
My client has just received a penalty for £400 which represents 5% of the tax that was outstanding for 2010/2011 as at 1 March 2012. The client was late in filing his tax return (filed 4th April 2012) and started making arrangements to try and settle his outstanding tax bill of £8k. He paid 25% of the tax straight away and tried to organise with HMRC a payment plan to settle the rest. HMRC have been very unhelpful regarding this which has led to my client to take out a bank loan at a much higher rate to settle the debt with HMRC asap.
The client understood that he would have a late filing penalty of £100 plus interest, but feels that the additional £400 is unfair and equates to an interest rate of approx 20%!!
My client was self employed for a year (2010/2011) and taxable income was £35k. He was the sole earner in his house at the time as his wife had maternity leave with their second child. My client had suffered £8k of bad debts with one of his customers and as a result returned to employment for most of 2011/2012. I know it is no excuse but as he was only self employed for just one year and suffered a substantial bad debt the money was not there to be paid. I feel that HMRC will not see this as a reason to not impose the penalty but I feel I should try for my client.
Has anyone got any advice on how to appeal against this?
Replies (3)
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Unlucky
I would be surprised if this appeal would be successful. HMRC will always charge the 5% on unpaid tax as at the end of February.
You could try with the sob story but it may just be a waste of your time.
as stratty says appeal
as stratty says appeal unlikely to succeed.
The only surcharges that I have ever had luck cancelling are in cases where my client had arranged time to pay before 28 Feb and as the SA return was filed late also I think that you have no chance, sorry.
hope you can proove me wrong.