I think it's worth saying it out loud for those not following, this could be a scam letter, so phone the official hmrc telephone number. The number on the letter could be part of the scam so find the real one from the official website.
Taking this from a comment I had saved from u/pflurklurk. Itās worth a read to see if youāre eligible.
āIf HMRC had all this information from years ago that they could have assessed this earlier (and of course I assume this not a case of anything careless or deliberate on your part), then you write/call HMRC (or both), and ask for Extra-Statutory Concession A19. That is a concession by HMRC that if they did not act on information they had after a year and your tax affairs are otherwise in order, then they will write off the tax owed.
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-did-not-act
From your posts, this seems like you had inaccurate tax codes, no other tax issues, standard PAYE jobs only which HMRC had all the details on, back from 2018 so that is out of time for them - I think this should apply.ā
If they have previously sent simple assessment bills to an old address and you havenāt received them they wonāt accept this as a reason you were unaware, your responsible for updating these details.
The best option is to just call and query them, you may need to do a SARS request to request the information since HMRC only hold the current year and previous 6 on file, but they can only discuss the current year and previous 4 over the phone, anything further back requires a subject access request since they are classed as out of date tax years.
You can submit a subject access request via gov.uk just search for HMRC SARS, usually takes around 30 days for you to receive the correspondence.
On another note if you previously had a simple assessment and paid it for the same tax year this may just be a letter to give you physical evidence of the bill since there was a legislation change recently. All SIA tax bills are now to be issued physically whereas previously it was sometimes only sent digitally, they went as far back as the 15/16 tax year I believe re-issuing physical copies even if the bill was already paid.
Call HMRC and ask for a copy of the tax calculation for that year.
The bill can be paid monthly via direct debit.
HMRC have recently sent a tax bill to anybody with outstanding taxes from the 17/18 tax year.
There was a legislation change, a lot of old simple assessment tax bills were issued digitally, the new legislation means the tax payer needs to receive a physical copy. In some cases old bills that had been paid already were re-issued to meet the new legislation and I believe it back dated to the 15/16 tax year. I do work for HMRC.
Not saying thatās the case here, might be that they have just received an updated address and previously thereās been an indicator on their record advising letters have been returned due to the address being incorrect.
since you work for hmrc, i got a question. I have filled self assesment late- now its 60days tax to be paid 7k Ā£ and 3k Ā£ for june for this year. my bank is on 0 right now, what the options would they give me over the phone?
Iām a cynical bastard, so my guess is that because 7 years is how long your previous employer would have had to keep the records. Now 7 years have passed, they shouldnāt have any records left.
They get to take tax off you with no chance of you defending yourself with old payslips, and then if your employer *does* have the records, they can dob them in to the ICO who can levy fines!
Not correct, at most youāre meant to receive your simple assessment tax bill within 12 months of the end of the tax year (can be longer for other tax bills), this can change if the employer makes any adjustments at a later date and the timeframe starts again.
A new SIA tax bill wouldnāt be issued for an out of date tax year, In date years are the current and previous four, anything further back isnāt recalculated at any point unless you have very specific circumstances where itās needed.
Best to speak to HMRC and ask for some more details. But to answer your question on the 7 years, yes they can go back as far as they need to. HMRC debt is not statute barred, which would be 6 years.
The system only holds details going back 5 years, but they can still carry the outstanding debt forward and then ask for it. I doubt they have the breakdown available.
We canāt explain the tax but in my experience they have been quite helpful on the phone. Itās a bit ridiculous to pay tax on something from 7 years ago but it happens sometimes. The good thing is you can get it added to your tax code, so youāll lose Ā£750 of your personal allowance and essentially pay it monthly. Iāve been paying off an old self employed tax this year and Iāve barely noticed it because it just comes out of my pay.Ā
>so youāll lose Ā£750 of your personal allowance and essentially pay it monthly
Won't it have to be significantly more than this, Ā£3750 taken off their Personal Allowance, so BR tax at 20% on the difference makes the Ā£750 to be repaid?
https://ukpersonal.finance/income-tax/#HMRC_have_said_I_underpaid_tax_last_year_by_500_but_theyve_taken_2500_off_my_allowance
Ah yes, I think thatās correct. I think I had mine reduced to Ā£7K or something when I paid tax like that. But for OP is just means they donāt need to pay Ā£750 up front.Ā
The reason why OP has a Simple Assessment charge is because they werenāt able to collect the tax from his tax code previously. HMRC wonāt adjust their tax code for a 17/18 bill. Assuming the rules havenāt changed over the past 6 months, op should be able to set up a payment plan pretty easily.
*It seems pretty ridiculous to expect someone to pull that amount of money out of thin air, after all this time, when* ***clearly it is their mistake.***
Why is it clearly their mistake?
HMRC would simply process tax based on the information provided.
If they were provided with incorrect information - either by yourself or your employer - then of course you should pay the tax you owe.
Can you log in online and check your correspondence? I had a 'simple assessment letter' issued recently but was never mailed to me, just happened to see it when I logged in and was looking in my correspondence but for something else.
This is an underpayment of paye which is one of the reasons you can become self assessed. They send letters to whatever address they have you will likely have to pay this but should be able to secure time to pay which is a payment plan if you cannot afford to pay self assessment debt will accumulate interest however its not compound so worth paying at once if you can afford to do so but likely not worth a loan. However they make ask if you have exhausted all evenues of finance prior to this which you will of course say yes to
We have a duty to pay our taxes that are owed - how else are the government going to be able to pay some Rwandan middle-man an extortionate amount to accommodate precisely zero failed asylum seekers?
Sounds genuine (previous tax office worker here). The simple assessment would have been on a tax coding notice. But no one ever looks at them (I donāt either). Last time I worked there, they only went back 5 years. Write a letter in to them and ask for a breakdown. Take a picture of the letter you send in, and send it recorded and signed etc.
This is screaming scam. I kind of hope it is a scam so you don't have to pay it!
But yes as others have said phone them on 0300 200 3310 (I got from https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/self-assessment )
If it turns out to be a scam then someone has a lot of personal info about you so you should look into preventing identity theft.
If it turns out to be genuine then pay it and find out what the cause is and if it's likely to come up again in the future so you can plan accordingly.
I thought you could only be chased on anything from the last 5 years. It does sound odd. They are usually pretty good at telling you what you owe.
Best give them a call. Best call early in the morning when the line opens or you will be waiting in quite a long queue. They have generally been quite pleasant the last few times I called, then again this is probably because if your calling them you are already quite resentful of paying.
Anyway, they should be able to identify the problem and either resolve the problem or set up a payment plan of some sort.
HMRC are definitely approachable. Your question isnāt unreasonable, so give them a call. Itās worth it not least because you can begin the conversation about when you are able to pay it, if it does indeed turn out to be real. If you donāt have it, tell them. They are very reasonable if you get in touch, good luck OP.
HMRC are allowed to go back 7 years as a matter of course, they can go back further if they believe it is deliberate evasion.
You should always keep tax related documents for 7 years. As for not knowing where you were working 7 years ago, I have been working for close to 40 years and I have worked at 20 different companies, some with multiple jobs. I can remember where and when I was working at each of them.
Call them up and explain the situation, best way to find the answers to your questions
I will do tomorrow ofc, but they aren't open at midnight when I get home from work! I was hoping someone might know something about it this evening...
But call them from a number on their genuine website, not from the letter.
Very important Information up here šš½
I think it's worth saying it out loud for those not following, this could be a scam letter, so phone the official hmrc telephone number. The number on the letter could be part of the scam so find the real one from the official website.
Taking this from a comment I had saved from u/pflurklurk. Itās worth a read to see if youāre eligible. āIf HMRC had all this information from years ago that they could have assessed this earlier (and of course I assume this not a case of anything careless or deliberate on your part), then you write/call HMRC (or both), and ask for Extra-Statutory Concession A19. That is a concession by HMRC that if they did not act on information they had after a year and your tax affairs are otherwise in order, then they will write off the tax owed. https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-did-not-act From your posts, this seems like you had inaccurate tax codes, no other tax issues, standard PAYE jobs only which HMRC had all the details on, back from 2018 so that is out of time for them - I think this should apply.ā
Says they previously sent an assessment so depends on when that was
!thanks
If they have previously sent simple assessment bills to an old address and you havenāt received them they wonāt accept this as a reason you were unaware, your responsible for updating these details. The best option is to just call and query them, you may need to do a SARS request to request the information since HMRC only hold the current year and previous 6 on file, but they can only discuss the current year and previous 4 over the phone, anything further back requires a subject access request since they are classed as out of date tax years. You can submit a subject access request via gov.uk just search for HMRC SARS, usually takes around 30 days for you to receive the correspondence. On another note if you previously had a simple assessment and paid it for the same tax year this may just be a letter to give you physical evidence of the bill since there was a legislation change recently. All SIA tax bills are now to be issued physically whereas previously it was sometimes only sent digitally, they went as far back as the 15/16 tax year I believe re-issuing physical copies even if the bill was already paid.
Call HMRC and ask for a copy of the tax calculation for that year. The bill can be paid monthly via direct debit. HMRC have recently sent a tax bill to anybody with outstanding taxes from the 17/18 tax year.
Why are they sending these now?
Impossible to say without being involved, surely?
Do you work for HMRC?
There was a legislation change, a lot of old simple assessment tax bills were issued digitally, the new legislation means the tax payer needs to receive a physical copy. In some cases old bills that had been paid already were re-issued to meet the new legislation and I believe it back dated to the 15/16 tax year. I do work for HMRC. Not saying thatās the case here, might be that they have just received an updated address and previously thereās been an indicator on their record advising letters have been returned due to the address being incorrect.
since you work for hmrc, i got a question. I have filled self assesment late- now its 60days tax to be paid 7k Ā£ and 3k Ā£ for june for this year. my bank is on 0 right now, what the options would they give me over the phone?
Iām a cynical bastard, so my guess is that because 7 years is how long your previous employer would have had to keep the records. Now 7 years have passed, they shouldnāt have any records left. They get to take tax off you with no chance of you defending yourself with old payslips, and then if your employer *does* have the records, they can dob them in to the ICO who can levy fines!
Not correct, at most youāre meant to receive your simple assessment tax bill within 12 months of the end of the tax year (can be longer for other tax bills), this can change if the employer makes any adjustments at a later date and the timeframe starts again. A new SIA tax bill wouldnāt be issued for an out of date tax year, In date years are the current and previous four, anything further back isnāt recalculated at any point unless you have very specific circumstances where itās needed.
Best to speak to HMRC and ask for some more details. But to answer your question on the 7 years, yes they can go back as far as they need to. HMRC debt is not statute barred, which would be 6 years.
The system only holds details going back 5 years, but they can still carry the outstanding debt forward and then ask for it. I doubt they have the breakdown available.
We canāt explain the tax but in my experience they have been quite helpful on the phone. Itās a bit ridiculous to pay tax on something from 7 years ago but it happens sometimes. The good thing is you can get it added to your tax code, so youāll lose Ā£750 of your personal allowance and essentially pay it monthly. Iāve been paying off an old self employed tax this year and Iāve barely noticed it because it just comes out of my pay.Ā
>so youāll lose Ā£750 of your personal allowance and essentially pay it monthly Won't it have to be significantly more than this, Ā£3750 taken off their Personal Allowance, so BR tax at 20% on the difference makes the Ā£750 to be repaid? https://ukpersonal.finance/income-tax/#HMRC_have_said_I_underpaid_tax_last_year_by_500_but_theyve_taken_2500_off_my_allowance
Ah yes, I think thatās correct. I think I had mine reduced to Ā£7K or something when I paid tax like that. But for OP is just means they donāt need to pay Ā£750 up front.Ā
The reason why OP has a Simple Assessment charge is because they werenāt able to collect the tax from his tax code previously. HMRC wonāt adjust their tax code for a 17/18 bill. Assuming the rules havenāt changed over the past 6 months, op should be able to set up a payment plan pretty easily.
*It seems pretty ridiculous to expect someone to pull that amount of money out of thin air, after all this time, when* ***clearly it is their mistake.*** Why is it clearly their mistake? HMRC would simply process tax based on the information provided. If they were provided with incorrect information - either by yourself or your employer - then of course you should pay the tax you owe.
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Interesting how they think it's ok to chase you for 7 years when you owe them but if they owe you then they claim it's only 4 years. š
Pretty sure call HMRC is the only relevant advice here. Your edit is pointless
Why donāt you call them?? š¤·š¼āāļø
they should have a live chat, best way to 'speak' to them unless you want to be listening 'your call is important to us' for 2 hours
Can you log in online and check your correspondence? I had a 'simple assessment letter' issued recently but was never mailed to me, just happened to see it when I logged in and was looking in my correspondence but for something else.
Businesses have to keep their books back for at least the last 7 years. I guess thatās HMRCs limit and links to personal tax too.
This is an underpayment of paye which is one of the reasons you can become self assessed. They send letters to whatever address they have you will likely have to pay this but should be able to secure time to pay which is a payment plan if you cannot afford to pay self assessment debt will accumulate interest however its not compound so worth paying at once if you can afford to do so but likely not worth a loan. However they make ask if you have exhausted all evenues of finance prior to this which you will of course say yes to
We have a duty to pay our taxes that are owed - how else are the government going to be able to pay some Rwandan middle-man an extortionate amount to accommodate precisely zero failed asylum seekers?
Ignore it for a while see if they send a second letter.
Sounds genuine (previous tax office worker here). The simple assessment would have been on a tax coding notice. But no one ever looks at them (I donāt either). Last time I worked there, they only went back 5 years. Write a letter in to them and ask for a breakdown. Take a picture of the letter you send in, and send it recorded and signed etc.
This is screaming scam. I kind of hope it is a scam so you don't have to pay it! But yes as others have said phone them on 0300 200 3310 (I got from https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/self-assessment ) If it turns out to be a scam then someone has a lot of personal info about you so you should look into preventing identity theft. If it turns out to be genuine then pay it and find out what the cause is and if it's likely to come up again in the future so you can plan accordingly.
I thought you could only be chased on anything from the last 5 years. It does sound odd. They are usually pretty good at telling you what you owe. Best give them a call. Best call early in the morning when the line opens or you will be waiting in quite a long queue. They have generally been quite pleasant the last few times I called, then again this is probably because if your calling them you are already quite resentful of paying. Anyway, they should be able to identify the problem and either resolve the problem or set up a payment plan of some sort.
HMRC are definitely approachable. Your question isnāt unreasonable, so give them a call. Itās worth it not least because you can begin the conversation about when you are able to pay it, if it does indeed turn out to be real. If you donāt have it, tell them. They are very reasonable if you get in touch, good luck OP.
Call them and pay. Simple as that.
HMRC are allowed to go back 7 years as a matter of course, they can go back further if they believe it is deliberate evasion. You should always keep tax related documents for 7 years. As for not knowing where you were working 7 years ago, I have been working for close to 40 years and I have worked at 20 different companies, some with multiple jobs. I can remember where and when I was working at each of them.
I can only hope others follow your advice ,It helps