Hounded by HMRC

[themimi]

I'm PAYE. A couple of years ago I moved I had to complete a self assessment to pay back some child credit as I'd moved in to a different wage bracket. All done. Then, I received a letter 6 months ago saying I hadn't completed a self assessment and was being fined. I'm PAYE so don't do SA. I called HMRC and they sent me a letter confirming I don't know anything. But the letters keep coming. Today received one saying I now owe £1,200. I'm clearly stuck in a system. I know I don't owe this because I have a letter from HMRC to prove it but the letters are really stressful. What can I do to get them to stop sending me these? Help!

Once you're on the system for self assessment, you have to keep doing it every year until they agree you don't need to.

Owing nothing is irrelevant. Being on PAYE is irrelevant. Being a teacher is irrelevant.

And yes, you can be fined for not filling it in, even if you owe nothing. Get in touch with them, they might have some wriggle room in view of your circumstances, but I don't know. Don't ignore them!

It is NOT true that you have to keep doing a tax return every year once you've done one. You do need to tell HMRC that you no longer need to submit one however.

Asking HMRC to withdraw a tax return
If you think you do not need to submit a tax return, for example because all your income is taxed under PAYE and you have no additional tax liability, you can phone HMRC on 0300 200 33100_ and ask for the tax return to be withdrawn. If HMRC agrees, this will means that you no longer have to file a return.
You can ask for a return to be withdrawn even after late filing penalties have been charged. If HMRC agrees, you will not need to file the return and any penalties issued for missing the tax return filing deadline will be cancelled.
You will usually have only two years from the end of the tax year for which the return is due, in which to ask for a return to be withdrawn. So don’t delay. If there are exceptional factors, you are on low income, and you need tax returns to be withdrawn for a number of years, ask TaxAid for advice.
HMRC will not normally withdraw a return if you have been self-employed at any time during the tax year – even if it was only for a short time and there is no tax owing.

taxaid.org.uk/guides/taxpayers/tax-returns/im-not-sure-whether-i-need-to-complete-a-tax-return

Just to add we did exactly this. Had to submit a SA tax return for 1 year due to child benefit charge.

Told HMRC the following year that my husband no longer needed to complete a tax return and that was that. He's not been asked to do one since.

At least if you do an SA you make sure you pay all the tax you should and get all the tax relief you should. Having had years of the Company I worked for getting my tax wrong, by correcting it on my SA I saved quite a bit of money.

If you have other income than pay you can simply declare it and it tells you whether it's over the allowances or not, rather than trying to figure it out yourself and then if necessary writing to HMRC every year to get them to manually add additional income. I know some people who write an essay to HMRC every year to declare various sources of income, I'm sure doing an SA would be easier.

@Cognacsoft

HMRC phone lines are mostly manned by incompetents and they need to open their offices for F2F appointments for the elderly.

Thanks to Gordon Brown, they don't have any offices to open. The majority of their town and city centre offices were shut down and staff made redundant. They now operate mostly out of a small number of large "contact centres" so there's probably not even one of those within reasonable distance of where "the elderly" live.

@anotheropinion

Owing nothing is irrelevant. Being on PAYE is irrelevant. Being a teacher is irrelevant.

Nail on the head. The ONLY way to avoid doing SA returns when they ask you to is to get them to agree and only stop when you have the "you don't need to complete a SA return" letter in your hand from them! If they want one, they want one, regardless of your circumstances.

Yes, you can phone to tell them your situation, and they MAY agree that one isn't needed, but you still need that piece of paper to confirm what they've said on the phone is right. With my clients, I'd say it's 50:50 whether they still want a SA return or not, and 50:50 with the latter whether they actually update their systems and send the letter.

The OP just needs to complete and submit the SA return that HMRC want - if their tax affairs are simple, it will be an easy job. Once they have received it, you can then appeal the late filing penalties with mentioning the previous phone calls saying one wasn't needed.

What an HMRC agent says on the phone is irrelevant as a lot of them are incompetent and don't know what they're doing. You need that "you don't need to submit a SA return" letter in your hand, only then can you be certain that they're not still waiting for it!