Getting a proper response from hmrc for personal tax issue they caused

[sleepwouldbenice]

I will try to keep this short. I am so bored but annoyed by it!
I had relatively simple tax affairs....Higher rate tax payers but no self assessment needed. Mostly Paye.
But changed employers a few times.

One employer from a few years ago didn't do salary sacrifice so claimed additional tax back from pensions paid
Another employee in 2334 and 2425 was an umbrella company so mostly paid directly into private pensions separately. Couple of odd other ups and downs ( eg bit of tax due on higher Interest received) but nothing major

Key thing was that all tax affairs boxed off up to 2324....

In march 25 I was annoyed to realise I hadnt reclaimed higher rate pension relief on a small pension I had had for years. 480 pa so £96 pa due back, put in a claim for last few years into hmrc...

They totally messed up... They deleted all my original pension tax records for those years and replaced them with this small pension, instead of adding the small one to the existing records
They then say I owe them lots of £.... I simply dont as the only change should be the 480 pa

They claim I have to prove them wrong. This would take hours and I might not have the records as I am not obliged to keep them that long. It was also their error!
I have rung many times for hours of my time (they often cut you off, and they dont understand the issue), written letters and raised a formal complaint

No response. Or at least not one where they dont insist they are right and I need to prove them wrong... its been nearly a year!

In addition to this they recently re opened my tax records from 20/21 and said I owed them money from then. Again with a letter with figures on but no explanation as to what has changed. Again I have binned those records. My small pension claim doesn't even go back that far so no clue why this has happened!

To top it all off they've not done my tax from 24/25 yet with no explanation as to why. It was originally due oct / Nov, now my online hmrc account says due may. How can this be fair or right? They actually owe me quite a bit of money from that year so its not really fair!

Finally they also seem to think I owe them over £1k for tax on bank interest for 2526 which simply isnt right as much of my savings are in ISA but I can't get them to tell me what records they have, for me to challenge this and I can't see where to challenge this error online. So again they owe me money as they have changed my tax code for this year and 26/27!

Any suggestions as to how I can actually get them to deal with me, work this through, not just send letters that are wrong and non sensical..appreciated please!

Or how to tackle any of these sub issues...

Thanks for reading all this and for any advice....

Argh. Sounds similar...

This is what I would do in your position (I actually complete tax returns each year much to HMRC’s disgust to ensure things are correct). But I wouldn’t send in originals, I’d keep those.

Also, no-one is ever going to be as interested and invested in your personal finances as you are, so it is in your own interests to maintain records. It can all be saved down electronically, and calculations done on a spreadsheet. I’d never trust HMRC (or a payroll department!) implicitly.

Thanks
I do know what you mean. But up until this issue it really has been relatively easy. Especially as i did it at the time.eg the odd pension tax relief claim or a minor amount owed for additional interest received
The most complex thing was a few years ago when I claimed back the tax on pensions from lack of salary sacrifice.
But digging it all out again and reminding myself of all the dates, values, reasons would be painful. It was 4 ish years ago!
And its their error!.

Your MP can absolutely help with this as any complaints to HMRC from an MP about how a constituent has been treated will be fast-tracked to a specialist team.
write to your MP with a clear outline of what has happened and outline of what you want ie review of your tax due vs payments made for the relevant years.

Thank you for the replies re MP. I hadn’t realised they would get in touch on this type of thing at all. Ours doesn’t reply to emails but I can try!!

My sympathies, this sounds really really shit. But I’m afraid you almost certainly will need to do this to close this. The technical position is probably that by claiming additional pension relief you have re-opened those years, and doing that resets the record keeping requirements. Not sure what their excuse is for 20/21 is though if you didn’t claim back that far, so definitely challenge that on the grounds it’s a closed year. I completely agree they should be able to work on an incremental basis but they can’t.

Not sure how the MP could help really with out you getting the information needed and when you have that you may as well just send it to HMRC

Op: hello MP I dont agree with HMRCs figures
Mp: ok what do you think they should be ?
Op: I dont know , I cant be bothered to get the info from the pension companies
Mp: well with out that info there isn't anything I can do

Hhhm...
How about
Op:All my tax was fine and sorted. All bills and settlements made

I submitted a new peice of information
Hmrc then binned all previous information but expect me to find it all put and resubmit rather than them sorting their own error

Do you really think i should have to find everything, resubmit, with the risk I could miss something, when its their error? Is this how you operate in your job perchance?

Easy answer. As my tax was previously settled and the only change was my additional claim. The figures should be paying me £96 pa
Plus them sorting my tax for 24 /25 which is well overdue
Plus saying why they think i haven't paid enough tax on IR.

I had the same sort of thing. HMRC agreed they’d made the mistakes, but I still had to pay it.

I can’t.agree with this more. I contacted the MPs secretary by email one morning.This was after weeks of calls by me to HMRC and nothing happening. The next morning HMRC rang - she gave her name and said she was my personal case worker. She also gave me her direct line. Every time she rang, she would say when she would ring again to update me. And she always did. I had the refund within two weeks plus £50 compensation for not dealing with it properly. It was amazing. MPs have a dedicated line they use.

This is really useful thanks! As I say our MP isn't known for being responsive but hopefully his team will be. I'll give it another couple of weeks as I am away then I will try this approach
Thanks!!

It is how I would operate in my job, yes, I get the info needed my self accurately. I used to work as a junior tax advisor, so when clients came in with a similar issue to yours, I would write to the pension companies extra to get the info to complete the tax calculations to be able to dispute the HMRC figures.

And HMRC can re open precious years if they think there have been errors, up to 20 years if they suspect evasion, and 6 years for carelessness.

I am sorry you are going through this stress and from no fault of your own. I hope you get it all sorted.

Thanks!
I have the added complication that I simplified all my pensions by consolidating them last year so really have to reopen lots of cans of worms to re work it all.
I actually dont have that much of a problem with them re opening 20/21. That's life. But again they've just sent me their new calcs. If they had sent me their old calcs and / or told me what they had changed or why, I might have a clue if they were right and how to respond! But nope...