Company PAYE refund & P35 submission

[Crack Addick]

I switched from permie to contractor during the last tax year and following my accountants advice my LtdCo was refunding my PAYE overpayments via the monthly payroll.

As a result my LtdCo is now due a refund of £1,300 from HMRC. My two questions are

1/ How can I check that the P35 was submitted? I registered online for "PAYE for Employers", but can see nothing submitted (and I don't want to phone Hector and put myself on his radar, unless I have to).

2/ Assuming it was submitted, how do I get the money from HMRC?

I've found other threads that talk about these refunds, but not how you actually get the money back. I would of course normally ask my accountant, but I'm not aware which remand centre I need to visit......

[Greg@CapitalCity]

(1) Ask your accountant to email you the confirmation of online filing - its a single page that confirms your P35 was successfully filed online. Or phone them. A call to confirm your P35 was filed with not bring you up on any HMRC radar at all;
(2) Often the refund will be sitting as a credit on your company PAYE account. If this is the case, the only way to get it is to write a letter to your HMRC asking for a cheque be sent to you (specify the address you want it sent to) for any credits that sit on your PAYE account. They usually take 2-6 weeks to respond with a cheque.

Good luck.

[Crack Addick]

GregCapitalCity - Thanks for the advice. I phoned Hector today and they were able to confirm that my P35 had been filed on time.

The lady said my accountant could request the refund, I could send a letter in or she could pass my case over to the relevant team. Needless to say, I took the third option. Though, she did mention that I was potentially going to have to wait until Nov (at the latest) to receive it. (Seems they have some form of re-org going on at present). Either way, it seems to have turned out well so far, though she did take a keen interest in why there was a refund....

Anyway, thanks once again.

[philip@wellwoodhoyle]

It's great with hindsight, but that wasn't really the best way to deal with it.

May not be technically correct, but I'd not have put the P45 onto your payroll and instead used a week 1 tax code for your £475 per month, meaning no tax nor refunds. Then I'd have got your self assessment tax return submitted electronically within days of the year end and you'd most probably have received the refund directly from HMRC within a week or so from submission as the SA refunds are automated. OK, it may have been delayed for security checks by a few weeks, but you certainly wouldn't have had to wait to November!!!

The delays and snail pace approach we've all experienced with PAYE refunds have taught me to try other approaches to avoid the backlog and can't be bothered attitude from HMRC.

As to your situation, don't just rely on the phone call as they may not have passed on the message, or the recipient may ignore it. Best to write into them, with your envelope and letter headed with "Urgent repayment case" which should get it prioritised, then send a reminder letter with same header every 4 weeks subsequently. No harm in phoning up again in a few weeks either. It certainly doesn't pay to sit back and wait as you never know whether it is in the process or whether it's been lost or ignored. The more contact you make, the more chance that someone at HMRC will press the button for you.

[Greg@CapitalCity]

May not be technically correct, but

You're right, it is not technically correct, but our experience is the same (a refund through the SA system is faster than a refund through payroll). Still, I guess the accountant was doing the 'right' thing by processing the P45 through payroll.

[Crack Addick]

Just as an update. The cheque turned up this week!

Only issue though was that it was sent to my former accountant in Yorkshire...... Thankfully the staff working there now, very kindly forwarded it onto me.

[Greg@CapitalCity]

Nice one!