Post-modernism
Recently I was looking on-line for the
first time at the record of a taxpayer who has been retired for
thirty years. As one would expect, he isn't exactly in the first
flush of youth, and although very much “on the ball” to the
extent of doing his supermarket delivery order on-line, I don't
expect him to be well up with our modern tax system.
Modern is a term I should use loosely.
Of course I mean “current” in that the system creaks badly
because HMRC relies too much on automation and their computer
systems, and have extracted the human element too much or too early.
Mystery
My older taxpayer's record showed that
he had had £1,500 tax coded out from his pension in 2011-12. That is
quite a lot, and I could not see where this previous apparent
underpayment of tax had arisen. The on-line details were not
sufficiently specific.
We asked for an explanation from HMRC
over the telephone, but the agent could not help and said he would
arrange for a letter of explanation to be sent.
To HMRC's credit, that letter arrived
within two weeks. However it explained that the underpayment of tax
had arisen in 2005-06 but had been collected in 2008-09 so it hadn't
needed to be collected again.
Goalpost shifting
All this is a bit worrying. In an era
where HMRC wants to move the goalposts further than they have already
done informally with regard to ESC A19 because they say they are
better at end-of-year reconciliation of liabilities, I cannot see how
they would have picked up this error from way back if someone like me
hadn’t picked it up.
Crying foul
We expect HMRC to hold errant taxpayers
to account. We expect them to collect “the right amount of tax”
by which I mean the amount properly due under the law. Unfortunately
we as taxpayers do not seem to be able to hold HMRC to account over
their errors.
I am going to ask for interest on the
refund due as a consequence over and above the generous 0% currently
prescribed. I will be wasting my time no doubt, but my older
pensioner has been deprived of a not inconsiderable amount of money
over twelve months. He should be entitled to compensation, don't you
think?
