HMRC thinks my husband is Scottish and he's not. Help!

[MoiraStewart]

I'm helping my husband with his tax return. We haven't logged into his government gateway account since this time last year and have been confused to see:

They have his address as an MOD office in Scotland (we live in the south of England);

They think he's Scottish as of April 2023. This is important (see below);

They have his correct employer in England (he's a teacher) but with a Scottish tax code (begins with S);

They also have an armed forces employment (he used to be an officer in the army cadets at his school but now is in the RAF and no longer gets paid so he hasn't had a P60 from them since 2015 and I'm not even sure it's the same employer). This also has a Scottish tax code. This employer's payroll seems to be based at the Scottish address they have down as my husband's home;

There is also a random non-coded income amount that we don't recognise but this seems the least of our problems.

What on earth is going on and what should we do? Trying to get hold of HMRC by phone is probably going to be awful. This is probably also going to mean an unexpected extra tax bill as tax rates are different in Scotland.

When we tried to fill in the return, it asks to confirm the address and Scottish/English status but warns that this may change the tax calculation. We don't want to do this without talking to someone first as there's clearly been a data error somewhere.

If anyone managed to get through that, we really need reassurance and some sensible advice, please. Tax and self assessments scare us.

Sounds like there is some muddledupness around his government gateway Id, have his records been merged somehow with someone else with a similar name?

Hopfully you have managed to speaker to someone to get this sorted x

They thought I was my sister in law a few years ago, not got the same name. I had been doing my tax return for years and suddenly my details changed. It took a while and a few phone calls, but it was sorted in the end. Good luck.

I've found them helpful when I've got through on the phone too. Though, I'm not sure you'll be able to do this for him. I'd assume he'll need to talk to them himself.

You will have to call them but tbh when I’ve called them and they’ve been very helpful

Dint know if you’ve been able to get anywhere with HMRC today.

If you haven’t, you can send them a letter highlighting all the issues.
They will take time to answer - be aware!! But they do abd you’ll have proof that you’ve tried to sort stuff out before the 31st.

Re child benefit.
You can receive it but ask them to not get it. That way, you’re still getting the protection re pension it gives you (if your docs are young enough)

All armed forces pay seems to go through Scotland, dc was whinging about it because it can mean higher taxes though it's was under a pound last year when I worked it out.

Someone on the web chat (which is hard to access as the bot keeps trying to give generic advice) said they'd update the address and make him English again, but it would take up to 72 hours to reflect in the gateway account and so we have to wait to do the return. No comment on how this happened. Then had to do a separate web chat with the PAYE team to sort out the random forecast amounts. They corrected his tax code. We now wait to see if it works and what the impact will be.

It will get sorted out. My son has to prove when he'd moved to England to get the Scottish address removed. He got an £800 rebate for nearly a years wrong code.
For a higher rate tax payer I think there's about £1000 difference a year between England and Scotland!! I drop to basic rate tax payer from April as I am retired

It seems they've muddled his address with the Army payroll offices in Glasgow.

The armed forces adjust pay to cover the differences between the tax systems.

OP.... hope you get it sorted today!

My husband has recently had a nightmare with HMRC because they suddenly thought he was also his twin brother and had two jobs, it took months to rectify and we had to involve the local MP, ridiculous that the only checks they do is date of birth and last name apparently so it can't be just him this has happened to! They were about to tax him 50% of his wages because that's the most they can tax you (they had already taken too much tax from him for a few months before this and had assured him it was sorted!)

Why are you feeling guilty and why should you have completed the tax return sooner, it is your Husband duty to his tax return unless you are his accountant.

OP - not much help to you for this problem, but if you haven't, can I suggest you fill in the forms and get yourself set up as an agent with your DH as a client? It's how I do my DHs returns and it means I can phone HMRC on his behalf in the same way that an accountant would be able to. You get your own login details and use those to access his accounts.
HMRC may be difficult to get through to at times, but they really don't bite and are usually very helpful (although I'm sure there will be no end of posters that jump on now to prove me wrong - lol).

Perhaps your husband can deal with this?

I clicked on this for two reasons - one is that I'm on the phone to DWP and have been on hold now for 47 minutes and am fed up and losing the will to live. I just need to speak to someone for roughly 2 minutes.

The other is that my DH IS Scottish. He's very broad, working class Glaswegian with a very strong accent (we live in England) and when DD2 was a stroppy 4 year old she once shouted loudly at him 'YOU! YOU THINK YOU'RE SCOTTISH AND YOU'RE NOT!'

It was clearly the biggest insult she could think of at the time. 😂
Hope you get sorted, OP.

I had a similar issue, what had happened is that someone's employer had accidentally miskeyed their National Insurance Number, and the miskeyed number was mine so that job got added to my account. It took a while for it to update on my tax account online, but it didn't affect by self assessment as I didn't include that other person's income. Their estimated tax bill was more than double my annual pre-tax salary.

Tbf I agree that it is your dh responsibility that yes HE should have looked at it much earlier on….

I get why why you are the one who is sorting it out but I somehow feel it’s a bit of an easy way out fir him.

Log onto your(his) personal tax account and see what home address they have on their system. If it's wrong you can change it online. Then you can click the box in the SA return NOT to be a Scottish taxpayer. Also make a note in the "additional information" box that he doesn't live in Scotland. All that will eventually filter through their systems and they'll stop issuing a Scottish tax code.

I work for the MoD. If he is a civilian he should contact Defence Business Services to see if they can help. When I joined, they changed my home address to the office I worked in and I only found out because my child benefit stopped. When they phoned hmrc they asked for my address and when I gave my actual address they told me I was wrong. With a hint I worked out that the address on file was actually my office. Two of my colleagues who started at the same time as me had the same problem.

@MoiraStewart if his home address is the incorrect MoD one they you should be able to amend it via his online account.

I phoned HMRC dead on 08:30 when they open and got through quickly.

It is very unlikely they will talk to you about his account unless he is there to give permission.

His address is now showing as correct and he's marked as English. I just have to finish entering the various bits of information in the form and then we'll find out the calculation. It very much looks to have been caused by the Armed forces payroll department. Bizarrely, his main employer (a school in the south of England where he works (more than) full time) never mentioned the Scottish tax code.

I've also opted out of child benefit payments. There will be a tax return next year to cover this year's benefits but after that we should be free of it.

Helps funds things that Westminster doesn't like free prescriptions and university education.

Probably other things too. The SNP are no worse than any other government. I've lived in both countries under different governments so don't kid yourself that the others would be any better.

I accidentally had a Scottish tax code from when I had a temp job in Scotland when I was 18. I noticed when I was 46.

I corrected it (I think online) and they sent me a cheque for £99 overpaid tax.

The tax rates have only been different for a few years (and are only slightly different) so it won’t be a huge amount of money even if he has underpaid.

If they think he is getting a salary he isn’t getting, he might actually be owed thousands.