The second payment on account is due at the end of this month. In the main, HMRC will have know what the amounts were since the end of January, yet they have waited until very late this year to send out the statements. I have had several calls from clients this week saying they have not yet had a demand. Yes, they all know how much they owe and they could probably pay on line, but if HMRC are going to bother sending out a statement with a payslip attached, they should at least make sure it arrives in plenty of time.
Looking at the client accounts on line, I can see that HMRC have "issued" a large number of statements at the beginning of this month. In the real world, this would be plenty of time, but we all know that in HMRC's world, post takes three weeks to leave their offices (on a good day), so the beginning of July is too late.
the cynical side of me would think they are hoping to charge lots of interest on late payments..
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No reason for delays
Some of my clients had them much earlier than others. My own personal one is dated 29 June and arrived the end of last week, pathetic system of postage well documented on here.
Vaughan's Rule of Thumb
Not sure if it's a conspiracy or a [***] up?..... then it's a [***] up!
The lack of payslips is a constant annoyance, especially when HMRC changed banks and rendered older stock obsolete. I know it is self-assessment and the taxpayers know what to pay and when but timely payslips/statements would be nice.
When SA first came out I suggested to a senior HMRC person that they didn't need tax returns at all. All they needed to do was send a stock of payslips to taxpayers and leave it to them to make the payments as and when they thought they should. The random investigations would then ask for a return/accounts/workings etc. Now that would be true "self-assessment". HMRC person looked blank and moved away as I recall.
I don't beleeeive it!
Post and delivery times are a constant source of amazement to me.
The NASA mission to Pluto got as far as the moon in just over 8 hours! The Apollos took a massive three and a bit days for the journey.
I ordered a new watchstrap from Malaysia late on a Tuesday night. On Friday morning at 8.30am it was delivered.
Ford quoted two weeks for a part to come from their parts department somewhere in the UK. I reckon that you could travel from any location in the UK to my town by pogo stick in a fortnight.
HMRC post takes three weeks to arrive from the tax office 10 miles away and so must go via where exactly, Neptune? Or travels by what means? If 10 miles = 52800 feet. Three weeks is 30240 minutes. That means that it travels at 1 foot every 34.36 seconds whereas a garden snail will travel 1.3 feet in the same time. Thus if my maths is correct using snails will cut delivery times from 21 days to 16 days. Worth a though eh?
Vaughan - it would be quicker to walk to hmrc office, take the info to the printers, print it yourself and earn the money to pay the demand. TNT post has a lot to answer for!
Yes it is on the Tax Faculty website http://www.ion.icaew.com/TaxFaculty/22554
Don't try to copyright, Vaughan
The principle you espouse is already well-known as Hanlon's Razor.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Let's face it, we've all seen enough stupid things done by HMRC to justify that as the most likely explanation.
News just in!
HMRC has sent me news to pass on to you. Here's their statement.
"Due to a higher than anticipated number of SA statements to be issued this year we will not be able to issue paper self assessment tax statements to all customers during the normal July period for issue. The majority will have been sent on time. "
"No-one needs to worry about this and we will be sending out the statements to remaining customers soon. People will have 30 days from receipt of the statement to pay. As long as they do that, no interest will follow.
On line customers will be able to check what's due over the internet and pay via the internet too."
"We are sorry if anyone experiences any inconvenience and we will let you have an update by the end of next week."