You Took Your Time

I received a tax refund this week, for the year 2008-9, a refund I wouldn't have received but for the incompetence of the local HMRC office. Back in December 2008 when I changed my company car we notified HMRC of the change, which should have led to me receiving an improved tax code and a little more net pay.

When the tax code didn't arrive after a couple of months, these things regularly take up to six weeks to work there way through the system, I asked our payroll administrator to contact HMRC to check whether or not a new notice of coding had been issued. As is the case in these matters I had to 'make the call' as they say, give my permission for my affairs to be discussed and wait whilst the conversation took place. It was quite surreal and is something that still gets talked about in our office for time to time, HMRC would not accept that I had a company car in the first place nor would they accept that I had changed to a more tax efficient (from my point of view) model. Without getting annoyed about it our lady, Ann, had to say at one point , "Well I can assure you he does have a company car because I'm looking out of my window at it now."

Anyway the tax office refused to play ball and issue a new code, we were within our rights to use an amended code as my tax affairs are simple enough to allow but we didn't. Now two years later two envelopes arrive, one brown, one white. The brown one contains my tax calculation for 2008-9 whilst the white one contains a cheque for just over £200, including interest! I'm an accountant working in an accountants with 99.9% of my income under PAYE and it's taken two years to resolve, no wonder the system is under pressure.