HMRC Loan Charge Enquiry Letter Early 2020, then No-thing

[Persefonie]

Greetings to all and apologies if this question has been referred to previously, I have not been able to find a link.
I am a locum scientist and have been previously working for the NHS permanently, then my husband became a cancer patient and I had to step back from full time briefly for some time.

In 2016 I worked a few months here and there, making no more than 10-13K. I was working with a company called Payrise and as far as I know I paid all my taxes.

In early 2020 I received a brown envelope from HMRC, which looked generic as it did not even have my name on it and referred to me as Sir/Madame, telling me there might be info of me using loan charge schemes.

This was the first I had ever heard of such things and I immediately contacted HMRC, who knew nothing about it.

I spoke to 3 people on 3 separate occasions, who opened my files and said they have no info regarding an enquiry about my tax affairs.

Eventually I managed to speak to someone in the Loan Charge dept, who told me they had no record of any enquiry. None-the-less the person I spoke to told me to send in info about my employment form the past 5 years from 2011-2016.

I did this via mail and email, and have proof I have interacted with HMRC. I have also noted all the times I spoke to HMRC agents and have asked them to put notes on my account that I called and spoke so many times.

Currently I have not been working as my husband became more dependant on my help and we are on a disability pension as his cancer brought on wide-spread lymphoma.

Then a few months later I received another anonymous titled HMRC letter, informing me I had up until Sept 2020 to rectify my tax returns regarding loan charge, but since then I have had no news.

I have not told my husband what has transpired, and have tried to contact HMRC further, I even obtained an online HMRC account to look into my returns and see if I am under investigation.

There was nothing apparent apart from an entry for zero income from an unknown to me company in 2017, named Hive, that I later discovered was linked to PayRise. As you may all be aware PayRise have been involved in loan charges and the company has had many other names.

I went on to inform HMRC that I never worked in 2017 and do not know this company.
And that's it. No news, no letters, nothing.

Round about here I have to admit that I became a member on this forum in 2020 to look into my case, and also spoke to an advisor via this site, who told me that I could spread my loan charge, if I really did have one, over 3 years returns and pay nothing as I have had zero income for 5 years now due to caring for my invalid husband.

My questions are as follows: Is there some kind of time frame that they have to open up an enquiry? Did they not bother on account of all the documents and info I gave them regarding having no income and the health challenges we face? Or am I due another dreaded brown envelope ?
Many thanks for all your help.

[Fred Bloggs]

If you earned £10k to £13k for those years your personal allowance covers the salary, pretty much. It was £11000 for year 2016/17. What do your payslips show? Your tax liability would have been very small in the overall scheme of things. Does it show income tax and national insurance contributions? I don't really know how anyone with such low earnings can be involved in a loan scheme? But then again, I suppose nothing should surprise me about the scheme providers.

[DealorNoDeal]

You've done everything you can to engage with them. I'm not sure there's much more you can do.

I'd be surprised if they open an investigation with you earning so little while with Payrise. Even if they did, any potential tax liability would be really small.

Try not to worry about it, and concentrate on your family.

[Persefonie]

Thank you for taking the time to reply, I too believe that they will not bother any longer due to the minuscule amounts involved, still you can never really tell with HMRC.

My payslips were online and when I tried to open them the program PayRise was working with corrupted them so that I cannot open the files.

I can access my HMRC online account and I can see that NI had been paid for the duration of my employment.

I did not make much in 2016-17, and did manage to pay a little tax and all of my NI.

I will keep you all updated if HMRC choose to investigate further.

Once more, thank you for setting my mind at ease.

[Chevalier]

From what you say, it seems like your details are on a list relating to the loan charge “somewhere” within HMRC which may carry a risk.

I’m not sure on your exact circumstances but this might affect two tax years - a) when you received the income and b) the 18/19 year when the loan charge was supposed to be reported.

HMRC normally have a year to raise an enquiry into a tax return after it’s submitted - but it doesn’t sound like you filed self assessments. If the SA is late it’s between a year and 15 months, depending on the exact date submitted. There’s also discovery assessments which have varying limits.

I can’t say for certain whether you were required to submit self assessments or not in the original year, but there were specific loan and loan charge reporting requirements, with penalties applying for non-compliance - these can easily rack up to quite a large amount of money, even if the tax owed is small.

Penalties can also apply for late self assessments - up to £1,600 per tax year. If you spread your loan charge over 3 years, all 3 years would be late, as opposed to 1 year, so this might now not be the best strategy.

Try speaking to one of the tax advisers mentioned on these pages - the initial call should be free, they normally have a good knowledge of most arrangements, and you may find a sympathetic ear that can point you in the right direction even if you can’t afford their services.

Alternatively Taxaid.org.uk might also be able to give advice

[PerfectStorm]

If the letter didn't have your name on it, how did you know it was for you?

If it was sent to "The Occupier, 12 Acacia Avenue" I'd ignore it

[AL1990]

I've had a similar experience to this, yet mine had my name on it.

I've provided them all the evidence i have within the bullet points they provided, they've clarified over the phone the scheme name and I've explained my unwillingness to engage with the scheme provider in any way to obtain more info (a ridiculous thing for them to ask i thought).

Still, no written contact in 2 years since the original letter and any conversation has been instigated by myself to see what's happening (a long list of excuses).

I've just been putting a bit of extra saving aside and putting it to the back of my mind.