Worked for Inland Revenue for 11 years in the 70s and 80s before I saw the light!
Progressed from working for medium sized firms of accountants to starting my own practice in 1996 and havent looked back since, with hubby joining me in partnership 7 years later.
This is precisely where the "adjustment to rate bands" deduction in tax codes comes in. I have a client with two pensions in this situation and the lower one is coded BR with the higher rate tax due (estimated) being collected by a restriction in the code for the primary source. A phone call to HMRC should sort this out.
Tom - I have posted before about this. My client is 86 years old. He doesn't have a computer, tablet or a mobile device and never will. Each quarter he completes an old-style paper VAT return and sends it to me. I then type it into the HMRC portal. I first wrote to HMRC about this on 18 May 2018 and followed this up several times as the promised HMRC guidelines on exemption were promised for 30 November, then 31 December but never showed up (Remember all that?).
Finally, I wrote again by Recorded Delivery on 11 February 2019 listing the dates of my previous letters (6) and telephone calls (4) saying that my patience was exhausted and that my client would continue to submit returns in the same way as there was very ample evidence that I had brought his circumstances fully to their attention.
I received written confirmation of exemption on 8 March 2019. Basically - I guess that they were just sick of me.
I find this very frustrating. I also claimed exemption on behalf of a client in his 70s, who has commercial lettings and is not computer literate but keeps his records in a handwritten ledger. It was refused on the grounds that we have been dealing with it up to now and can therefore continue to do so.
I havnt had any letters, have you ? A few clients out of 100 or so have said they've had one, but nothing for me.
Watched an ATT webinar on Thursday in which they said that letters would be sent out to all MANDATED taxpayers by the end of February and to those close to the threshold subsequently.
Many years ago, before HMRC could go back 20 years, a new client (an actor) came to me to tell me he had not declared any earnings to HMRC for 12 years, as he didn't have enough money to pay the tax due. He had picked up a particularly good job and wanted to "come clean".
We prepared 12 years accounts and tax returns and I sent them all to HMRC with an explanation. They duly assessed all of the in-date years and kindly declined to bother with the out of date years! Admittedly the unpaid tax was relatively small but I wonder if the same would apply now!
What if the company has ceased trading and the two directors (husband and wife) have split up. The wife took a large sum out of the company a year before she left, which was added to the DLA the previous year. Husband is willing to try and find the funds to replace the money but is out of work now, so what do we do if he can't manage it? S455 tax was paid last year - is there any way of him getting this back?
I too have found it impossible to reconcile liabilities and payments. It would help enormously if HMRC would not split payments that obviously belong to a single period but just leave any under- or overpayments showing against the period they belong to (even if it does mean interest is charged).
When we first had access to HMRCs detailed PAYE records (due to having a small number of clients we were allowed to "join" the new system early) I had real hopes that we would be able to sort out discrepancies going back several years but it is just too difficult to do.
At least with the PAYE system you can actually find payments made - with the CT system it is next to impossible to locate payments unless they have been allocated correctly to the year concerned.
My answers
This is precisely where the "adjustment to rate bands" deduction in tax codes comes in. I have a client with two pensions in this situation and the lower one is coded BR with the higher rate tax due (estimated) being collected by a restriction in the code for the primary source. A phone call to HMRC should sort this out.
I find this very frustrating. I also claimed exemption on behalf of a client in his 70s, who has commercial lettings and is not computer literate but keeps his records in a handwritten ledger. It was refused on the grounds that we have been dealing with it up to now and can therefore continue to do so.
We use VT to prepare accounts and convert to iXBRL format. Easy and inexpensive.
Watched an ATT webinar on Thursday in which they said that letters would be sent out to all MANDATED taxpayers by the end of February and to those close to the threshold subsequently.
Now seen it below.
Nope, I have been asking and none of mine have had a letter yet! Disgraceful.
So they'll sort it out but only if we waste our time (in January of course!) telling them they have got it wrong. Great!
Many years ago, before HMRC could go back 20 years, a new client (an actor) came to me to tell me he had not declared any earnings to HMRC for 12 years, as he didn't have enough money to pay the tax due. He had picked up a particularly good job and wanted to "come clean".
We prepared 12 years accounts and tax returns and I sent them all to HMRC with an explanation. They duly assessed all of the in-date years and kindly declined to bother with the out of date years! Admittedly the unpaid tax was relatively small but I wonder if the same would apply now!
What if the company has ceased trading and the two directors (husband and wife) have split up. The wife took a large sum out of the company a year before she left, which was added to the DLA the previous year. Husband is willing to try and find the funds to replace the money but is out of work now, so what do we do if he can't manage it? S455 tax was paid last year - is there any way of him getting this back?
I too have found it impossible to reconcile liabilities and payments. It would help enormously if HMRC would not split payments that obviously belong to a single period but just leave any under- or overpayments showing against the period they belong to (even if it does mean interest is charged).
When we first had access to HMRCs detailed PAYE records (due to having a small number of clients we were allowed to "join" the new system early) I had real hopes that we would be able to sort out discrepancies going back several years but it is just too difficult to do.
At least with the PAYE system you can actually find payments made - with the CT system it is next to impossible to locate payments unless they have been allocated correctly to the year concerned.