Refunds Due From Inland Revenue

They say that tax rebates due to tax payers canand in some cases these amounts have been
be delayed by more than a year and this canoutstanding for more than 12 months.
sometimes be even after the refund has actuallyIt is not just tax payers who are fed up as
been approved.employees of the Inland Revenue find themselves
One of the reasons why the UK tax payer iscoming under pressure from the public
often due a repayment is that the tax officeApparently in one survey the staff had given the
does not have the time, the manpower or theInland Revenue management a confidence vote
inclination to check to see if tax payers areof only 14%.
actually due a refund.A report by the National Audit Office which was
It is estimated that the Inland Revenue arepublished in January 2010 reported that 43% of
hanging on to millions of pounds in unpaid refundsincoming telephone calls representing some 40
owed to tax payers.million enquiries were left unanswered. Whilst this
There are refunds due to all kinds of tax payersmay be a very large organization this is still no
for example individuals in respect of selfexcuse for poor performance.
assessment tax returns and those who are taxedMy experience has been much better than this
under PAYE and who very often do not receivebut you can often be holding on for 10 or 15
a tax return.minutes and although you ring one number your
Quite often PAYE (pay as you earn) codes cancall is answered at different locations over the
be wrong for various reasons and recently thecountry. It is in fact more or less impossible to
Inland Revenue admitted that millions of codesspeak to somebody from your actual tax office.
were incorrect. Even when you can get them onSo if your PAYE tax office is in Edinburgh (as
the telephone they often say "I see you rang lastmany are) but the phone gets answered in
month to change your code and we agreed itBradford, Manchester or in Wales. So the person
should be changed,however,for some reason ityou speak to will then email your tax office in
does not seem to have been put though ourEdinburgh and they action your inquiry the
system"!following day. My experience of this is that you
You should know that when a code is changed ashave to call again to make sure it has really been
the Inland Revenue sends the employee a copydealt with.
at the very same time as they notify theMorale of the staff has dropped in the last few
employer.months with the very considerable extra burden
However with some very large employers andof trying to resolve millions of errors.in computer
pension payers the Inland Revenue can getissued PAYE coding.
access to the employers' payroll system so theyAnother reason why morale in the tax office is
can update the PAYE codes automatically.low is that there is a threat of redundancy
It is not just those who are in employment or thehanging over all of them as the revenue is trying
self employed who are due tax reclaims but thereto reduce its costs at call centre's by some 30%
are monies outstanding for capital taxes andby the year 2012.
company taxes as well.Members of Parliament on the treasury select
The individual value of refunds which are held upcommittee which was chaired by John McFall
or delayed vary between £100 and can be inwere critical of the management of the tax
excess of £100,000. The average PAYE refundoffice. In a report the select committee said that
that is due to employees is in the region ofthe performance at HMRC remains mixed with
£1,300 but this amount varies from taxpayer toconsiderable room for improvement and
tax payer depending on their circumstances.considerable challenges remain to be overcome if
These are very substantial amounts of moneyHMRC is to achieve this improvement.