Another low for HMRC?

Letter to husband following wife's death.

Didn't find your answer?

Not a question just an observation.

A client/friend whose wife died on 13 July received one of the standard lettres issued by HMRC following notification of the death.

Clearly no-one had read it before issue.

It contains the following:

"I'm sending the Tax Returns to you to fill in, as the personal representativeof Mrs X. Please send them to the address above by the following due dates:

Tax Return 6th of April 2018 to 5th April 2019 due by 13 July 2019. Additional supplementary pages can be obtained from the gov.uk website.

We'll charge the estate penalties if you miss these dates." 

Luckily my client knows that this is complete rubbish but what about the panc and upset this would cause other people who are not so well versed on tax law!

Can no-one in HMRC read? 

Replies (7)

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By Tax Dragon
03rd Sep 2019 09:53

It's pisspoor, obviously.

But imagine if you generalised this way about another group of people. "Can't women read?" "Can't tall people read?" etc.

Aweb, the natural home of HMRC-ism.

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By codling
03rd Sep 2019 10:31

Thanks Tax Dragon, the letter came from a government body rather than a generic group of people and this organisation is charged with looking after peoples tax affairs and thus has a responsibility for ensuring that letters are appropriate, read properly and are factually correct. The quality of letter writing by HMRC has, in my opinion, gone swiftly downhill in recent years and this is by no means an isolated incident.

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RLI
By lionofludesch
03rd Sep 2019 10:31

Mrs X ? Malcolm's wife ?

Only this week, I resolved a query on my late mother's estate. Interest seemed a bit high - about double her usual - so I asked for a breakdown which showed some from HBOS, NSI, a few quid from HSBC and ....... £1068 HMRC estimate.

"What's this HMRC estimate supposed to represent?", I asked.

"Oh", they said "that was the estimate we had in before we got the real figures from the bank; here's £200+ tax we owe you."

Good job I asked .........

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Replying to codling:
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By Tax Dragon
03rd Sep 2019 10:48

I agree and I didn't mean to sound as if I was defending the indefensible. But I think the issue is not that "no-one at HMRC can read". It's worse than that.

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By Justin Bryant
03rd Sep 2019 13:31

That's nothing. It has been stated here pretty regularly that HMRC are very happy to totally screw taxpayers, even (perhaps especially?) vulnerable ones.

This happens all too frequently. See latest "in terrorem" assessment against a taxpayer (lacking full mental abilities it seems per paras 11 & 27) quashed here:

http://financeandtax.decisions.tribunals.gov.uk/judgmentfiles/j11298/TC0...

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Replying to Justin Bryant:
RLI
By lionofludesch
03rd Sep 2019 11:13

Oh yes - I accept we're only scraping the surface here.

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Replying to lionofludesch:
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By Justin Bryant
04th Sep 2019 11:21

I note ICAEW yesterday commented on HMRC's outrageous conduct in the recent case above. See: https://economia.icaew.com/news/september-2019/hmrc-plucked-taxpayers-as...

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