Last June I mentioned a lady on whose
behalf I had made a claim under ESC A19. She had visited the local
office of HMRC, back when they had one, to ensure that her tax would
be dealt with correctly following the recent death of her husband.
Her claim for relief from a quite considerable amount of back tax
owing as a result of HMRC's failure to act following her visit was
turned down.
On behalf of my client at the end of
May 2012 I appealed against the decision. At this stage it was by
making a formal complaint given that the relief requested is actually
discretionary as far as HMRC is concerned.
I had heard nothing from HMRC by
September so I telephoned and was advised that the matter had been
“brought forward” which is Civil Service speak for not actually
having done anything but not yet lost the file or record. I called
subsequently without getting news of further progress, and again
after the January tax return rush was over. I was then told by the
call centre that I would get a call back from the relevant office
within five working days.
I did get a call back within two days
from a Complaints Officer. The conversation went something like this:
Complaints Officer (CO) “We replied
to your letter of 30th May last July. Did you not receive
it?”
Me: “No.”
CO: I think it was probably never sent.
I will fax you a copy. You won't be surprised to learn that your
request for relief (under ESC A19) has been turned down again”.
Me: “Why was I told in September that
the record had been brought forward if a letter had been sent?”
CO: “Because your client has
complained to her MP so we kept it open.”
So I received the faxed letter with the
date “July 2012” but no actual day typed or written in, so it is
fair to assume that the letter was indeed never sent and that Royal
Mail are not to blame.
The reasons the further request for
relief have been turned down include that the end-of-year pension
providers' PAYE Returns submitted in May each year do not count as
information HMRC could reasonably have used although they “appreciate
how tempting it is to assume these immediately become available for
ESC A19's purposes.” Well, blow me, if someone send me an email,
letter or fax that I actually receive (unlike HMRC's letter) I have
the information and it is my fault if I neglect to do anything with
it.
The seven-month-old letter goes on to
stress that the information they receive allows them up to four years
to review the tax position. Well, we know that. It's the law. It has
nothing to do with whether HMRC acted properly and whether they
should give up the tax they did not collect in accordance with a
long-established concession and precedent.
They at least concede that my client is
not a liar and accept she did visit the tax office after her husband
died. However according to HMRC she could not apparently have
“reasonably believed” her tax affairs were in order following the
issue of an incorrect coding. That assumes she would have had some
knowledge of tax (something HMRC unreasonably wishes to impute on all
taxpayers in a recent consultation on the concession) and that her
understanding was not skewed in the trauma of bereavement.
My client and I are not
leaving it there and we will return to the fray. We have further
grounds for complaint in their not sending the letter and not
mentioning it over the telephone two months after it had been typed
and left on file, unsigned. Of course the whole letter is complete
and utter nonsense arguing in the face of what would have been a
simple case of allowing the relief if a request had been made in 2010
or earlier.
There is no doubt that HMRC has sent
round a memo instructing that all claims be turned down on whatever
grounds. Their correspondence is disingenuous and frankly, they might
as well abolish the concession altogether rather than just change it,
if they are intending to turn down all future claims.
HMRC need not be afraid of one bad
write-up in the Daily Mail if they even get one. After all, the
politicians and the public have too much fun bashing the
multi-nationals for sensible tax planning, and for whatever reason
this tax abuse of small taxpayers who are mostly pensioners is being
largely ignored by the media. It seems that politicians who count in this matter are not going to help.
Isn't it all a disgrace?
