Some advice needed

[Zippy]

I'm not stressing, I'm just bloody annoyed. This has been going on for ages. I had q2uite a constructive conversation with the HMRC guy when I first contacted them. His words were 'fill in the replacement return and forget about it' The next HMRC person I spoke to told me that they had the replacement return and that it was rectified on their system. The next one, some weeks on, told me that they should have contacted a debt department within HMRC and she would do this. But at every stage I have told the debt company this. This has been going on for months and the HMRC have been contacted regularly along the way

Fair enough. I'd be annoyed too. I'm just saying if HMRC won't call off the dogs you'll have to.

[TykeMerc]

Tony I've had several VAT returns go "missing" that were posted in good time (I have more than 1 VAT registration) it's down to them getting a hell of a lot of the damn things and having lots of utter muppets. I have no doubt that lost returns at their end is a prime driver for forcing electronic submission.

As Zippy said the debt agents don't give a toss about helping to sort the issue out, if they can get some money off you and HMRC don't want it because there's no debt then they will happily hang onto it unless you force them to give it back. Most debt agencies make legal action threats that they will never follow through anyway, it's just a way to scare vulnerable people.

If you do Special Deliver a letter then that's a justifiable business expense.