April 15th in Accountancy News, Money, News, Tax by Editor .
Reclaiming Tax: Be Careful What You Ask For
Reclaiming overpaid tax has got to be a part of a fair tax system. But check your calculations…very thoroughly…
Or you might end up getting fined more than you requested in the first place. For a particulalry harsh demonstration…
Daily Telegraph: [A] self-employed man from Kent, who has not been named, tried to reclaim £3,000 in overpaid tax for the year to April 2009, but Revenue & Customs calculated that he was owed £1,000 and fined him £1,400 for the error.
New tax regs mean HMRC can fine claimants up to 30 per cent of tax owed for careless mistakes and up to 100 per cent for errors that it believes were deliberate and “concealed”. Which makes one wonder what the hell they were doing all those years MPs were ‘making mistakes’.
