Reply to: MARD Issued by HMRC on behalf of EU State

[BlasterBates]

I know this is an old post as im in the same situation from a shortfall in tax paid back in 2012 to 2013

I also am aware of MARD but also noticed HMRC will not persue on debts of 5 years old and wondering if this is true ?

If I were you I'd take legal advice. There are other ways of collecting cross-border debts.

[ukleeds1995]

update ?

I worked in Germany for 4 months end 2006 and have just received a letter stating the german taxman was starting criminal proceedings.I paid into my UK Ltd company and paid uk tax.
I am deciding whether to ignore the letter. When i looked up MARD on the HMRC website it said they dont get involved in cases over 5 years old - yet you case was 2003/4 which is way beyond 5 years.
Did you look into this at the time ?

I know this is an old post as im in the same situation from a shortfall in tax paid back in 2012 to 2013

I also am aware of MARD but also noticed HMRC will not persue on debts of 5 years old and wondering if this is true ?

[yakkers]

I have just received a 'Mutual Assistance In the Recovery of Debt (MARD)' from HMRC on behalf of the Germany TAX authorities.

This is for year 2003 & 2004, so there is the debt ~25K and interest ~15K. However there is no information showing how the debt is calculated.

If I have not paid something I own then I will accept this, however I would like to see how the figures add up, I would also like to dispute the amount of interest they have added.

(There is one thread on the forum that returns a hit with MARD although 43 page long it went cold at the end of 2011 and doesn't give a lot of advise).



Where should I start with advice or help on this?

I worked in Germany for 4 months end 2006 and have just received a letter stating the german taxman was starting criminal proceedings.I paid into my UK Ltd company and paid uk tax.
I am deciding whether to ignore the letter. When i looked up MARD on the HMRC website it said they dont get involved in cases over 5 years old - yet you case was 2003/4 which is way beyond 5 years.
Did you look into this at the time ?

[BlasterBates]

It looks like you've unwittingly been evading tax and they have evidence. You need a German tax expert to sort your affairs out. The authorities don't ignore tax you've paid, there is a reason for it.

Normally you should have a document from the Finanzamt which will explicitly outline what you've paid. If you don't have that, the only reason would be that no tax return was filed.

[hlvs001]

Many thanks Steve and all. Very useful information.

[cojak]

Many thanks for updating us Steve.

And Good Luck for the future.

[stevevalo]

I just wanted to inform the people that gave advice and others who may be interested that I paid this bill.

I was hard to swallow, but I owe what I owed.

I ended up speaking to some UK and DE Tax specialists, and also ex-colleagues that I had suspected of been through the same thing.

The UK Tax specialists, some of gave good sound advice and others that just wanted to fight/sue HMRC for even contacting me. (This has nothing to do with HMRC they are just acting as a debt collector).

The DE specialist also gave good sound advice, which I was surprised at for some reason.

The DE Tax authority will not be contacting you if they did not have sufficient evidence to do so.

My ex-colleague decided to fight. Every piece of information the DE Tax authority produced which my ex-colleague questioned the DE Tax authority had proof, be it invoices, timesheets, bank transfers etc. He ended up paying legal fees as well as the TAX bill and interest. This amounted to more than if he had just paid without fighting it.

If there is no penalty to pay on your letter then they have already removed this, which can be almost the same again of what you owe.

That is my advice and a summary of the information that I received. If it is wrong please point this out, if the information is incorrect please state why.

To quote from the DE specialist there is a body on the floor, and a smoking gun in your hand.

Annoyingly I believe people are still being led astray and that Germany has a revolving system in place which is a very nice money earner for the Government.


edit: I wanted to add I never received any direct contact from the DE Tax Authority. I had moved around a lot. But I believe they had sent out letters to an old address. I imagine from the DE Tax authorities point of view I was just ignoring these letter, but I never. Once the DE Tax authority has exhausted all means of contacting you directly they are then open to use the MARD process. Which allows them to use any EU member states Tax authority to request/demand the money owed.

I believe I was in error for not informing the DE Tax authority of my new address, and therefore the interest accrued was still chargeable.

[BlasterBates]

As above it is quite probable that you underpaid your tax. You need to get in touch with a German accountant. Management companies are notoriously bad at offering illegal tax efficient solutions.

[cojak]

I received a letter to my home address in France from Finanzamt demanding for payment for the years I worked in Germany (2 years) via PSB, although all of the tax returns were filed and cleared. Any idea, what I should do? Contact the German tax accountant or a lawyer or ignore?

Do not ignore, follow the advice above and contact the German tax accountant.

[hlvs001]

I received a letter to my home address in France from Finanzamt demanding for payment for the years I worked in Germany (2 years) via PSB, although all of the tax returns were filed and cleared. Any idea, what I should do? Contact the German tax accountant or a lawyer or ignore?

[darmstadt]

I worked there and paid some TAX, not all. Obviously in hindsight I would have done things differently.

If I have never formally been informed of the debt is it possible for them to charge interest?

Can anyone recommend a professional organisation that would help me resolve this?

Thats the sticking point, you paid some tax but didn't pay it all. If you don't pay all tax owed and on time then there are daily penalties which must be paid. Its all part and parcel of being taxed in Germany and they probably did inform you of something like this at one point, probably its written on a tax return somewhere. I had a tax bill for €72,000 one year which had to be paid in 30 days otherwise I would be fined daily. Naturally there is no way that I could pay this so using my German accountant I managed to get it reduced and to pay in 2 instalments. This is one of the reasons why professional contractors get a German accountant to deal with their financial affairs so that this type of problem does not occur. The German tax authorities are hitting everyone hard, not just UK contractors who tried to do a 'fly by night, pay little tax' contracts but also many Germans who try secrete their money outside of Germany.

[BlasterBates]

Hello again and thank you for the replies.

Yes there is contact details on the letter but I wanted to get other advice, maybe of someone that has been through the pain, before calling.

I have made a few enquiries but no where near the path to sorting this out.

Still reading through that other tread.

I worked there and paid some TAX, not all. Obviously in hindsight I would have done things differently.

If I have never formally been informed of the debt is it possible for them to charge interest?

Can anyone recommend a professional organisation that would help me resolve this?

You obviously underdeclared your income and so be pleased they haven't charged penalties, which is quite possible.

Basically if you weren't paying 25-35% of your income in tax, it was illegal/incorrect.

[stevevalo]

Hello again and thank you for the replies.

Yes there is contact details on the letter but I wanted to get other advice, maybe of someone that has been through the pain, before calling.

I have made a few enquiries but no where near the path to sorting this out.

Still reading through that other tread.

I worked there and paid some TAX, not all. Obviously in hindsight I would have done things differently.

If I have never formally been informed of the debt is it possible for them to charge interest?

Can anyone recommend a professional organisation that would help me resolve this?

[JamJarST]

Might be time to move countries again....

Really? How is this helpful?

[Wanderer]

Where should I start with advice or help on this?

Might be time to move countries again....