PAYE but sent SATR for years. How can we stop this?

[bigbarnfarmer]

My Dh was advised by employer in a job some 5 years ago, that he could claim for money back from the tax office because they were giving 11p per mile and it should be more. He ended up being asked to complete a SATR and received a couple of grand. All fine.

However ever since he has received a notice to complete a satr. Every year since, he has been an employee of a company with a paye tax code but despite entering the figures required straight from the various forms p60/p45 etc he has received a rebate, always around 1k.

This worries me. For one i am scared of the HMRC but also i never feel like we should spend that money incase it is a mistake. I re check the figures and i know they are correct but this means that something is wrong, the paye ta code i'd imagine.

Does this mean that the average Joe Bloggs is also paying too much tax every year? Or am i missing something?

Also how do you get them to stop sending these bloody notices to complete satr?

Is he still claiming excess mileage costs? What is his tax code? Is he paying higher rate tax?

If the tax returns result in an adjustment to tax due (either way), they are not going to stop sending them.

PAYE is very good for people who earn a straight salary with no perks, allowances or extras to take into account like company cars (or mileage allowance in his case), health insurance, pension contribs. However, if you are not on a straight salary and your tax-code gets even slightly out of synch, PAYE falls down and discrepancies are common. I also PAYE but fill in a SATR because I like to be 100% sure once a year that I don't owe them anything and they don't owe me anything. I usually get back about £500.

I can recommend getting hold of some SATR software - I use one called http://www.taxcalc.com/ TaxCalc - to make the process smoother and to give you peace of mind that you won't be asked for the money back.

After a few years with no anomalies they usually send notice that you no longer need to do one. dh has had the opposite and has to do one this year, having been asked not to just a couple of years ago. HMRC sent him an underpayment bill last March having messed up his code regarding benefits in kind which may be why they want to check last year again.

You need to find out WHY the return is generating a refund (claiming additional expenses on return which aren't reflected elsewhere / wrong PAYE code etc).

Then you need to rectify that situation if you can. If you can't he just needs to continue to do a return.

Once rectified you need to contact HMRC and request that they stop sending notices to complete.

Once a notice to complete is issued you have to file a return, therefore you need to stop them issuing the notice.

TaxCalc