Bailiffs and Inland Revenue

[Dolly6]

Last year, my OH had an outstanding debt to the Inland Revenue. This week, he has received a statement from the Inland Revenue, stating that he still owes £560. He had paid £1100 in 2 lump sums to a bailiff for HMRC in July who told him the debt was now clear. However, he has found out today from HMRC that only approx £600 has been credited to his tax account as the rest are the bailiffs fees!!!

Needless to say he will now incurr charges and interest and go through the whole process again only to find that all of what he pays does not get credited to his account.

Has anyone else had experience of this??

[tomtubby]

Which firm of bailiff attended?

 

Also doe OH have the name of the bailiff that dealt with his case. If so could you please provide me the name by private message ONLY so that I can check whether or not the bailiff is certificated.

 

He needs to write a Subject Access Request to obtain a full and detailed breakdown of the fees and charges.

 

I will post here shortly the up to date fees that they can charge when collecting inland revenue debts.

[John McKenna]

If the bailiff has collected the correct amount as stated on the warrant plus his fees, then in all likelyhood the bailiff company has forwarded the correct amount to HMRC. If a further outstanding amount is now due there could be several reasons but we'll need more information from you before commenting further.

 

Is your OH self-employed?

 

Do you know what the outstanding amount due to HMRC consisted of? Nat.Ins. Contibutions? Tax for specific years? Payments on Account? Penalties for late payments/Self Assessment Returns?

 

If there were penalties for late returns, has your OH now returned the necessary paperwork to HMRC to enable them to calculate what he owes based on the correct information?

 

A lot of Inland Revenue warrants are issued against the self employed because they haven't filled in their returns. Even if they pay the bailiff what's owed based on HMRC's estimates (in the absense of actual figures), the person will still need to fill in their SA returns and get them back in to their local tax office. Failure to do so will result in further penalties and eventually warrants!

[Dolly6]

Thank you both for your replies.

He is self-employed. The original amount was a charge but HMRC doesn't know what for and that is why he appealed against it and so incurred further penalties and interest.

The firm of bailiffs was Charles Taylor.

OH had a call from a very helpful person at HMRC who has found out that he was given wrong info and the bailiffs didn't keep so much, in fact their accountant admitted that they had never sent the first payment to HMRC!!

When OH rang Charles Taylor to tell them they should pay the penalty charges etc, the woman on the other end, without asking any details of dates, names etc. said the payment had been lost in the post even though OH told her what HMRC had said.

[tomtubby]

Sadly this is outside my area and is best answered by JMc K

 

I will observe from the sidelines.

[John McKenna]

Dolly,

 

I'm a little confused...

 

Are you saying the bailiffs didn't overcharge now?

[Dolly6]

Thanks Tom Tubby for your help.

 

Yes, John it looks that way. He was told by HMRC when he first queried it that the bailiffs had kept part of each payment which was confusing as they had already put disbursements on the receipt of £193. If it wasn't for a switched on person at HMRC who rang the bailiffs to get to the bottom of this he would be chased for the amount that was still with the bailiff's accountant. Unbelievable!!!

[John McKenna]

The bailiff collected the right amount!

 

Quick!! Someone sticky this topic!!

[Dolly6]

Haha.

Sorry for not replying sooner but couldn't get near computer, think son has taken up squatters rights!!!

Waiting to hear from HMRC that the amount has been transferred and the debt is clear. Will let you know!