You might also be interested in
Replies (17)
Please login or register to join the discussion.
Reasonable excuse has been accepted especially for non-filling where a taxpayer has relied on his accountant and has provided his accountant will all the information and he reasonably believed that the accountant will take care of the filling.
handy article on this:
http://www.taxadvisermagazine.com/article/steptoe-so
It seems to me that too much energy is spent on arguing about penalties in cases which are weak to say the least and not nearly enough time has been spent trying to reform the ridiculous regime as it applies to cases where no tax is due including partnerships.
£1300 for the late filing of a no tax return and remember on the case of a partnership this is per partner, smacks to me of undue enrichment for HMRC.
It seems to me that too much energy is spent on arguing about penalties in cases which are weak to say the least and not nearly enough time has been spent trying to reform the ridiculous regime as it applies to cases where no tax is due including partnerships.
£1300 for the late filing of a no tax return and remember on the case of a partnership this is per partner, smacks to me of undue enrichment for HMRC.
Amanda Elliott is spot on with her conclusion that the system needs reform. It seems to me that such a reform is the "just cause" that all MP's in the upcoming election would be prepared to put their names to. Nil liability should mean Nil Penalty.
The enactment also needs to be retrospective, back to the start of the current regime, since Parliament could not have intended to be unjust in the first place.
AccountingWEB should start a campaign now!
We are in the process of trying to help a young woman who has been clobbered for three years of penalties for failing to submit returns. Her only income was PAYE and the net liability was about £170!
£3,900 for £170 of tax: and the officer seems to think that is fair.
The only reason the Revenue issued the returns was because her income is so low that they couldn't recover the tax through her coding and this was the HMRC route to making the debt enforceable.
When HMRC spits out a dummy it can go a long way.
So far HMRC have rejected the appeals against the penalties and now we have requested a review.
Robert
Keep arguing and also put in a complaint against HMRC, I have seen them respond, cancel the penalites and also write off the tax due in a similar case.
We are in the process of trying to help a young woman who has been clobbered for three years of penalties for failing to submit returns. Her only income was PAYE and the net liability was about £170!
£3,900 for £170 of tax: and the officer seems to think that is fair.
The only reason the Revenue issued the returns was because her income is so low that they couldn't recover the tax through her coding and this was the HMRC route to making the debt enforceable.
When HMRC spits out a dummy it can go a long way.
So far HMRC have rejected the appeals against the penalties and now we have requested a review.
I have a case ongoing now with virtually the exact same circumstances. Have asked HMRC to withdraw the notice to file tax returns (and thereby cancel penalties) because the liabilities are all agreed based on computations issued - Returns only issued after and should surely not be necessary. HMRC's attitude to this young "girl" is, to say the least, heavy handed. Be interested to hear how your case ends up if ours isn't settled suitably!
Penalties should be cancelled if submitted return shows either nil tax or a refund due.
May be like VAT if the second year is late then the £100 sticks in these circumstances, the daily penalties for third year.
Whatever, the penalty should be restricted to 200% of tax due. I have always said the penalties for non submission can be more than those for incorrect ones, even if willfully so, that is not right, just or equitable!
I submitted an appeal that began:
"I have submitted this appeal because defects in the Government website prevented me from signing in before the deadline to submit the tax data that I had prepared for my tax return.
I tried to login to the Government website at about 00:30 on 31 January 2017, using the same username and password as last year. I then discovered that the website had instituted additional identification procedures, which malfunctioned, and I was left locked out for 24 hours. This is confirmed by my first attachment - a copy of the screenshot that I took at the time."
The screenshot had the calendar and clock superimposed on it so that there could be no doubt that it had been taken before the deadline. My appeal then continued with details of further difficulties in contacting the HMRC helpline and then in using the "Verify" system.
My appeal was accepted and the £100 penalty was cancelled.
HMRC's calculation based on my SA return showed that they owed me £0.15 - much the same as happens every year. I would add that I had completed a spreadsheet of my data as it had come in during the FY so all that should have been required was half an hour of transcription.
Amanda Elliot is right in claiming unjust enrichment on the part of HMRC, but the reason they are able to carry out this theft is thanks to their lies to Parliament.
MPs were informed nasty people owing £000s were deliberately not submitting returns in order to deprive the Treasury of said £000s. The result, construction industry workers due repayments ending up having £1300 stolen from them. A freedom of information request would reveal that the total of the penalties far outweigh the amount of tax brought in by this policy.
Four large in penalties for £170 tax is clearly "unjust and onerous".
Use of that term in a politely-worded appeal is usually sufficient for HMRC to cancel them.
I usually find that HMRC is reasonable on that point. Credit where credit's due cuts both ways...
We filed NRCGT return late because the client didnt know that they had to.
HMRC is charging £1000 in late filling penalties for zero CGT payable.
Anyone come across this situation?
Thanks
We have one running at the moment. Thankfully the return wasn't that late but the appeal has gone in. We didn't know they had sold, neither the lawyers or the estate agents had heard of the return so didn't raise it with the vendor. The only person who had even heard of the return was me...and nobody told me about the sale.
I suspect that there might be a bit of a backlog in the appeals dept.
Property was sold in Jan 2016. NRCGT return was submitted in Aug 2016. We sent appeal in Sept 2016, it was returned to us because there was no NI or UTR on the letter. However, this was appeal for non-resident company who never had a UTR. We included NRCGT Case ID. I then spoke to one of their specialists and they said that the letter should not have been returned. We sent it back in October 2016. We only heard back in March 2017. They rejected the appeal. We have now sent for independent review of the appeal .... nothing from them since 1st March 2017....
May I ask what reasonable excuse you claimed? And what was the wording of your letter.
Many thanks
Keith Donaldson argued that as HMRC had not specifically informed him of the date from which the daily penalties could apply.
Nice try Keith, ludicrous excuse with nil or very little chance of success. HMRC are very reasonable if you send in a reasonable excuse, try to make your excuse reasonable to your circumstances, ill health ect. I get the feeling HMRC have heard and read most excuse all before.