Called Agent Priority line before 8 this morning.
Very helpful lady, confirmed my fears of extra PAYE sources, suggested she could fax details as obviously couldn't give all on phone.
Fax came thorugh at 8:29 - problem solved.
Very impressive - thank you
Replies (14)
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I agree
A very helpful and efficient member of staff - but when, oh when are HMRC going to kick themselves into the back-end of the 20th century and start using email rather than fax?
Another one
I spoke to one of the HMRC R&D units at 8.30am this morning, the chap I spoke to said he would find out the answers I needed and called back by 8.45am with all the necessary info.
They do get a good bashing but I've always found the HMRC very helpful whenever I speak to them.
A mixed bag
Sometimes it is worth calling back if you get a particularly bad one. I asked for a perfectly reasonable time to pay arrangement on a client with a temporary cash-flow issue (a major customer had gone under). You'd think I was asking to murder children with the hostile response and third degree that I got. Someone at the client had another go, with exactly the same information that I was using, and got a result that was better than I originally asked for, and far better than the first HMRC person was willing to accept.
I am sure that the fact that it was a bloke at HMRC both times, but that a charming young lady telephoned from the client the second time had nothing to do with it. :-)
Faxing Pay & Tax Details
Is only available in January, all other times they only post them out.
Although you are pleased, they have not gone beyond the call of duty, they are just following their standard practice for this time of year!
Impressive would be a new system whereby you didnt have to wait 2 weeks to receive these details at any other time of the year!
Another helpful person
Having navigated the hell-spawned voice-recognition system, I just got through to someone on the PAYE line about some bizarre content in a letter they had sent to a client. The lady I spoke to said that the only notes on the PAYE side related to code amendments, which was the only thing we were expecting. She suggested that the additional content of the letter may have arisen from self-employment instead, which wasn't her area.
At this point, I would normally have expected to have been told to telephone back on a different number. I even asked if calling back on the agent line might be the answer. Instead of doing this, the HMRC lady offered to look on the self-assessment side to see if there were any notes there whose content would save me having to do that. Let me repeat that, she was prepared to check outside her normal field with her stated aim being to save me the trouble of having to make another call.
No notes on the self-assessment side either (which there would have been if the other content of the letter was anything at all to worry about) so I was saved a phone call by this helpful individual.
I had a helpful one yesterday too
There must be something going on?!?!
I phoned to arrange a time to pay arrangement for a client yesterday and they were allowed to spread the payment over 14 months! Payment plan doesn't end until March 2015.
I was quite relieved as on Friday, she became the first client I have actually reduced to tears with the size of the tax bill! Not massive to most but massive to her.
(I should point out now that I only took her on in December so her expectation was not my fault!)
Fair enough
the impressive bit was not having to ask - I didn't know this was available at all so when it was suggested as a solution I was impressed, and when it only took half an hour to have been generated and faxed that was another feather in their cap.
This morning they have also confirmed as Kenneth said that if you can give them the sources they will just read you the details.
I see your point, if you didnt know this was normal procedure.
Phone call and faxing
I love the quaint idea that HMRC seem to have that speaking to a person who has answered all of the security questions isn't as secure as a fax machine that requires no security credentials and can be viewed by anyone that happens to be sitting next to the machine.
However, if it gets the desired result then I'm not complaining!
I've just had ...
... an in year PAYE penalty reduced from £4k to £50 following my appeal, and they apologised if the reduction wasn't as much as I hoped for - the words off, their, bit, I and hand are appropriate here!
Odd response
@OGA
They did something nice for you and your response was to maim them? How very odd! :-P