BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: GUEST,999
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 06:07 PM

If you don't owe, force the issue. Call the police and get the "collection thug" carted off.

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 06:05 PM

I had one client who came to me because they had a distraint notice and a tax assessment for over £5,000, even though no tax was due.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I got agent authorisation, and all the paperwork in order, signed off by the directors, and delivered, by hand the next morning.

When I got there I had to go to the enquiry office which was on the ground floor in the same building as the tax office as the public were now allowed in the tax office for 'security purposes'. I asked if they could call up to the tax office as it was an urgent case (it was early afternoon) to which I was informed that someone would collect it the next morning, and maybe it would get looked at then. When I tried to reiterate the urgency, they showed a complete disinterest.

I couldn't even get proof of delivery!

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 04:44 PM

That has all gone out of the window. We had an instance recently of a client who received letters from HMRC on 2 consecutive days, one advising that he owed no tax and the other that he owed in excess of £5k. After several very difficult telephone conversations with not very intelligent and rude HMRC employees (some of whom had little more than basic English) our tax specialist proved that 2 separate files for our client existed on HMRC's system.

I could quote many examples of gross incompetance and rudeness from HMRC employees.

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 04:37 PM

Exactly, Dave. I can sympathise to a certain extent with anyone dealing with complaints from the public, (who can be abusive and even violent at times). But when an elderly lady Taxpayer arrives with a genuine enquiry, perfectly polite and pleasant, and is treated with appalling rudeness it's just not acceptable. It's a case of good manners really, which seem to be sadly lacking nowadays. This woman's first word to me was "Right!" Charming!

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 04:26 PM

When I was an Assistant Collector of Taxes, it was drummed into us at basic training that if you wanted people to pay their tax, you had to be polite to them and don't come over all heavy like Customs and Excise or Council Rate Collection services.

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: GUEST,Big Norman Voice
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 04:17 PM

There you go Jack, pick the bones out of that one!

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 03:15 PM

Hopefully there will be a post from LtS?

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: alanabit
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 03:11 PM

The Revenue has obviously changed a lot since I was working there in 1976. Had I been rude and aggressive to a taxpayer, I would very quickly have been in real trouble myself.

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 01:04 PM

Thank you for your advice and support. I've paid my Tax all my life, always PAYE, and yet it seems I'm not entitled even to a pleasant and helpful interview. I sincerely pity any older person who has no-one to advise them and has to face large sums of money being inexplicably removed from their pockets. I'm still so angry at this woman's attitude. What was the matter with her? It's her job to advise and explain Tax matters, but she was a human Rottweiler! I'll do as Bonzo3legs advises and see what happens. But as the lady said with a triumphant sneer, "The Tax has already been taken so we can't put it back anyway." It was just like a Monty Python sketch!

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 12:44 PM

It's called " PROGRESS".

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 12:43 PM

"wouldn't explain how they'd arrived at their figures"

More likely couldn't than wouldn't, Eliza. The old days of going into your local Tax Office, talking to a trained Tax Officer, and leaving with a resolution are long gone. Now it's "Compu'aah says no", half-trained call-centre staff who can't answer a question if the answer's not in the list on the the Compu'aah.

Follow Bonzo's advice and put it in writing. But be prepared to wait four months while they get round to opening your letter (that's not a joke, I wrote to them about my wife's and my own tax codes in June 2010, and when I called them in August to ask why I hadn't had a reply, they told me that letters received in June were scheduled to be opened in October.

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 12:24 PM

First write to the local HMRC Area Manager. Failing satisfaction, make a formal compliant to the Adjudicator, with a claim for an apology and financial compensation.

Make a nuisance of yourself!!!

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 12:15 PM

I'm still trembling with stress and anger having had an interview this morning at an HMRC 'Advice Centre'. They have discovered a small amount of underpayment (How? I don't SEE my Pension until they've had a big bite out of it!) and whacked a huge sum off this month's Pension to get it back, far more than the sum they say I 'owe'. The woman I saw was dreadfully rude, confrontational, and aggressive, needlessly as I am unfailingly polite and pleasant. She kept repeating that the Tax was correct, wouldn't explain how they'd arrived at their figures and in the end I had to leave as we were getting nowhere. I was so upset, they have taken my money for no apparent reason and won't admit it, explain or refund it. What can I do? My husband said he suspects that they are stealing people's money (which happens in his country) and just as I was about to defend the integrity of our Tax officials, I had a terrible thought... perhaps they ARE!

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 10:49 AM

Just about every council has used debt collectors and after conviction, private bailiffs.

Whilst there are issues with slack accounting leading to action against the wrong people, (and there should be laws for automatic redress) the fact remains, if people do not pay their taxes, society must have the means to get at the money.

Debt collection companies need stronger regulation, granted, but at the end of the day HMRC have a duty to us all to ensure a government can enact its program. Otherwise, talk of a social agenda, prudent small government, large government, whatever, is rather academic.

We vote for government to do things and without money, they can't.

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 09:16 AM

You are twenty years out of date.

The Scottish authorities used private debt collectors on the poll tax right from the start, under Thatcher.

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: GUEST,Big Norman Voice
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 09:02 AM

Perhaps they should set them on the Poll Tax refuseniks in Scotland next!

Subject: RE: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 07:57 AM

Please don't register your brain with an organ donor database.

Subject: BS: HMRC now using debt collection thugs
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Mar 11 - 07:50 AM

HM Revenue & Customs in the UK are so desperate to collect unpaid tax, that they are sending debt collection thugs to private houses to hound for tax payment. These people have no access to HMRC tax account database, and so they do not know if tax is still due. One of our clients had a visit from a very rough lady indeed, who was very aggressive - crazy thing is that no tax was due.

This of course is a direct result of the bumbling labour governments.