Cynical or what?

Before Christmas I was wondering what the point of e-Christmas cards was. Now I have to clear out the old decorations and physical cards I can't help feeling thankful that so many people sent me an e-card this year, it's the ultimate in environmental friendliness. In fact, there were a couple of really nice ones - if I save them I can edit the text and send them myself next Christmas - how about that, no paper and recycling too!

That wasn't really the point of this post though. On a more serious note, a client has just emailed me a letter from HMRC Debt Management chasing his company for £1200 for a late 2010 P11D(b)! The wording of the letter seems a bit odd though, it acknowledges that this might be the first time the company has known about this - quite right too - and that maybe they would like to talk to HMRC about it. Very strange I thought.

Looking at the file I can see that we filed nil P11Ds for some years, occasionally just with expenses reimbursements. The company is only used for a part-time consultancy and in 2009-10 it didn't do much so there was nothing to declare on a P11D. In 2010-11 it was a bit busier and paid medical insurance for the director so we duly filed a 2011 P11D and paid the Class 1A NI.

So it seems to me that towards the end of 2011 someone at HMRc has tried to put two and two together, thinks there's a missing return and rather than phoning or sending a simple letter enquiring whether in fact a return was due at all has simply raised a penalty notice in the hope that the company might cough up £1200!!

Looks to me like a totally cynical ploy, so watch out for these penalties if you get a chance to look up from your pile of SA Returns.

How are we doing this year? Still too many left to do, but still not a huge amount of work actually in the office waiting to be done. Once again it looks like clients are just going to leave it till the last moment again.

Happy New Year all!