Why Are Millions Owed In Income Tax Reclaims?
Why are there so many people due an income tax refund?Some folks say that it is simply because the Government wish to hold on to taxpayers hard earned money as long as they can. I doubt that, I think it is simply that they are not geared up enough to be able to correctly assess the tax in the first place and then again it just takes them far to long to generate a repayment.I rang the paye tax help line recently and the recorded introductory message advises that refunds are taking an average of four weeks to process.It is said that one of the reasons for the delay is the extra checks on security that have been brought in before they actually make the tax refund.One point that I find of great concern is that when on the telephone you hang on for ever and ever. Clearly the service is just not satisfactory.Then when you keep hanging on the telephone they give you the very many options and after you have made your choice and waited for a while you are then told that they are receiving high call volumes and then they simply hang up. Just imagine any business in the real world that did that. I do not think they would last very long.The amounts of money involved are huge. It was revealed by the National Audit Office (NAO) in July 2010 that there are some 18 million outstanding tax cases involving some 15.4 million people.It is thought that about 50% of those cases are
where refunds are due to tax payers who could be owed some 3billion.There is considerable annoyance about the number of phone calls that remain unanswered.It is estimated
that some 44 million calls are not answered every year.The latest figures from the NAO reveals that about one third of telephone calls are answered during peak times. Callers are charged whilst they hold on.Basic mistakes made by Revenue officials cause real headaches for taxpayers every year.They often incorrectly issue tax codes which can contain mistakes resulting in excessive paye tax being deducted from employees.I have even seen stupid mistakes where they have allocated people to different companies for who they do not even work simply by being unable to properly enter the correct computer reference number. You would have thought that the Inland Revenue would have some basic system of checking for this kind of classic error as it is not exactly rocket science! Some of the reasons why people are due a tax repayment is that they may leave their job part way through a tax year and have not had the full benefit of a years free pay allowance. Another possible reason could be that they used to have personal benefits that are no longer enjoyed such as car or medical but they remain in the PAYE coding.
where refunds are due to tax payers who could be owed some 3billion.There is considerable annoyance about the number of phone calls that remain unanswered.It is estimated
that some 44 million calls are not answered every year.The latest figures from the NAO reveals that about one third of telephone calls are answered during peak times. Callers are charged whilst they hold on.Basic mistakes made by Revenue officials cause real headaches for taxpayers every year.They often incorrectly issue tax codes which can contain mistakes resulting in excessive paye tax being deducted from employees.I have even seen stupid mistakes where they have allocated people to different companies for who they do not even work simply by being unable to properly enter the correct computer reference number. You would have thought that the Inland Revenue would have some basic system of checking for this kind of classic error as it is not exactly rocket science! Some of the reasons why people are due a tax repayment is that they may leave their job part way through a tax year and have not had the full benefit of a years free pay allowance. Another possible reason could be that they used to have personal benefits that are no longer enjoyed such as car or medical but they remain in the PAYE coding.
Author: Peter Jones