All sorts of trouble .... (Tax & VAT)

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

I move to a house in September 2004. In August 2012 I got a letter relating to VAT owing by previous occupants from April 2004!

So sometimes they are very inefficient....

True But they're tenacious - you can't deny that

[helpplease]

60k for one year?

On challenging this it seems we just randomly sent HMRC "some money" they asked for .... sadly the letter asking for this has disappeared

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

I had literally no idea, paid a 60k CT bill in February, so figured everything was been dealt with

So you were the signatory on the account and you did see the bank statements? The reason I ask is that HMRC won't accept ignorance of the situation as an excuse so if you did have access to that sort of information it's best to 'fess up. What period did the CT payment cover?

[Scruff]

If this was in General, I would have called BS. HMRC do not let unpaid VAT lie without intervention of some kind?

[helpplease]

I'm affraid I'm blind, I got access to the online banking for Catter Allen this morning, but I haven't signed anything, the wife has done all the damage off her own back.

[DaveB]

Hi I'm Lisa

First things first - don't panic!

The thing that surprises me the most is the VAT issue - that side of HMRC tend to be far more aggressive than their counterparts and late payments tend to attract mountains of correspondence let alone no payments at all. Do you know whether your VAT returns have been submitted for the period from 2012? If they have I would have expected aggressive chasing of monies owed to have started way before now and your accountant should have been aware from your books that no payments had been made. The same applies, in a lesser degree, to the SA - HMRC tend not to let things like that go and they chase for them well before they're actually due so you should certainly have seen some correspondence.

One thing that's just occured to me, did you have a direct debit set up for the VAT? If so HMRC will have been sending you bills based on estimates rather than returns, and just taking the money. If the money was getting paid this would have meant they were less likely to chase you for overdue returns. Might be worth looking into.

Is the 54k figure from one letter or a number of them over a period? If it's a number of them check what they actually say and check the bank accounts for payments to HMRC.

[helpplease]

One thing that's just occured to me, did you have a direct debit set up for the VAT? If so HMRC will have been sending you bills based on estimates rather than returns, and just taking the money. If the money was getting paid this would have meant they were less likely to chase you for overdue returns. Might be worth looking into.

Is the 54k figure from one letter or a number of them over a period? If it's a number of them check what they actually say and check the bank accounts for payments to HMRC.

Hi - no direct debit in place, the 54k number is from looking in the freeagent page for VAT and seeing the totals for each quarter with no payments against any of them, oh and the missus admitting to burying her head in the sand over it all.

TBH if i hadn't found the original letter from HMRC about the 25k SA problem, this would have just carried on as is .... what a terrifying thought.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

I'm affraid I'm blind, I got access to the online banking for Catter Allen this morning, but I haven't signed anything, the wife has done all the damage off her own back.

Again, this won't be any defence against HMRC - you are a Director of the company.

[helpplease]

Again, this won't be any defence against HMRC - you are a Director of the company.

I have no defense ... the money is owed, end off.

I just want to get it dealt with ASAP, but don't want to just call them, would much rather have a good accountant dealing with this for me.

[DaveB]

Hi - no direct debit in place, the 54k number is from looking in the freeagent page for VAT and seeing the totals for each quarter with no payments against any of them, oh and the missus admitting to burying her head in the sand over it all.

TBH if i hadn't found the original letter from HMRC about the 25k SA problem, this would have just carried on as is .... what a terrifying thought.

Ouch, fair enough. You have definately got Free Agenct set up to to automatically receive the bank data from Cater Allen? It may be a case that the bank statements themselves show something different if the transactions were being added manually. Has your wife trashed all the HMRC letters? As others have said, they would certainly have been chasing you for it, and after this amount of time I'd have expected them to take more direct action.