harssased by silly people

[helvenlief]

My wife is being hounded by the d.w.p for not returning a self assement tax return. she ignored it as she has Never been self employed and now she has been hit with a bill for 1.600 pounds which has started to be taken out of her wages ......any advice would be greatly apreciated.

[Amethyst]

Re: harssased by silly people

She needs to contact HMRC and talk with them about it. find out why she was sent a self assessment tax return in the first place. Ignoring it is really the worst thing you can do. Have they given a breakdown of the £1600 ? If it's already started coming out of her wages then there must have been a fair bit of communication before now.

from Gov.Uk

Phone

Telephone: 0300 200 3310


5. Penalties

You’ll get a penalty if you need to send a tax return and you miss the deadline for submitting it or paying your bill.
You’ll get a penalty of £100 if your tax return is up to 3 months late. You’ll have to pay more if it’s later, or if you pay your tax bill late.
Estimate your penalty for Self Assessment tax returns more than 3 months late, and late payments.

You can appeal against a penalty if you have a reasonable excuse.

[Snoopy1948]

Re: harssased by silly people

Self assessment tax forms come from HMRC and not the DWP and the golden rule should be to never ignore one. That was the first mistake. For some thing that has been ignored and subsequently 'hounded by silly people', this seems to have gone a long way resulting in an attachment of earnings order.

You state that your wife has never been self employed but HMRC clearly have some information to have made their own assessment on in the absence of a completed return. Not being self employed and creating income from non PAYE employment may be considered two different things but in the end, they are the same. Has your wife ever created income from home while not considering that she was self employed? And could such have been advised to HMRC by a third party? You will be amazed what their compliance department finds out from given intelligence.

The obvious answer is to speak to HMRC and define what has been happening here. Sorry, but to consider them as 'silly people' is not going to be helpful.

[ostell]

Re: harssased by silly people

Or it could have been a simple checkup on the pay and tax situation by HMRC and they did it by requesting a self assessment. Not complying started the problems. Not to say that HMRC don't make mistakes, they certainly do!

Glad I got out of the self assessment loop last year.