Reply to: HMRC letter for disguised remuneration from XXX that I never took

[markrammond]

Hi, I genuinely can't remember the sums involved given the timescales, but it is a fair point there may have been a slight advantage in my favour.
However this wasn't any of Procorre, disguised loans or loan charges, and is if anything at all a nominal sum compared to the assertions.
Thus I am not being funny to say I don't recognise anything in the paperwork they have sent.
HMRC simply haven't got anything right in their assertions or even nearly right.
If they were to claim an error in their favour from 12 years ago or what not of a couple of grand plus interest that would be a sensible letter to have received and not the utter garbage I did get which is 100% guesswork.
I will see if they have any evidence.
I honestly think they have counted every penny I earned from 2011 to 2014 as a loan despite them also seeing that I was done by them on PAYE.
I reckon when I worked I was picking up about £4K a month and they were getting £2K plus what they got out of the employer.
I don't see how I could also have earned another £200k whilst doing 40 hours on payroll for RBSI and the Post Office etc, it is absurd.

[Paralytic]

Hi, I have written to HMRC already to state my truthful position that I was a contractor for what must be about 32 days only and that the money was paid to a London based payroll agency and then to me. The original sums involved from my one and only contract were as I say about 12k or so.

Have you worked out if the appropriate tax was paid on all monies for those 32 days? eg, 32 days @ £500 gives £16K. If you got £12K, that's you retaining 75%, which might be on the high end if tax/NI has been taken off (assuming you also had other income that year).

I'm not saying you owe what HMRC say you owe, but you may owe something, and they have assumed your guilt for a much wider period of time.

Also, see this post where someone commented that HMRC said they "guesstimated based on averages"

https://forums.contractoruk.com/hmrc...ml#post2970706

[markrammond]

Hi, I have written to HMRC already to state my truthful position that I was a contractor for what must be about 32 days only and that the money was paid to a London based payroll agency and then to me. The original sums involved from my one and only contract were as I say about 12k or so. I have also phoned up HMRC without getting hold of anyone of real value to try to find more details out. So I have not ignored the correspondence. But I know the claims they are making are frankly absurd, there's suggestions of 200k+ of income and tax on it of 55k for the scheme operator and 33k to me personally. I'll update the forum if I ever hear back. There simply isn't any data records which show me receiving these huge revenues, or any revenues. It is a fishing trip. It wouldn't bankrupt me or cost me my house, even the 88k in total, but it is hassle I don't need, and I wonder how many other people have had these speculative invoices.

[eek]

A complete misunderstanding of the situation you are NOW in.

So you need to get HMRC to correct their records as otherwise they will be chasing you for £x,000 in money to the point that HMRC go after your house / bankrupt you if you are not co-operative.

And to do that you really can't ignore it you need professional advice from someone.

[markrammond]

Hi there,
If we consider HMRC's records, then this is fundamentally how they work.
They have a series of unique identifiers, called the Primary Key, which work across databases, for instance National Insurance number or UTR, these are all what in data terms is used to merge records together.
This is based upon fundamentally sound principles.
However, their investigative software is based merely upon data feeds from various sources.
This data is then "soft matched" in, which means that for instance if there is a match on surname, date of birth and postcode, then that can be joined to the record.
I have no doubt that in this case they have got my name as having been registered as contractor and who had signed paperwork with a third party.
However that is all they have.
There are no loans, no disguised income... there could have been of course if my contract had not ended, but it did.
Thus, my position is that there has not been a penny of loans, it isn't in advertent or aggressive, there simply isn't any money that came my way.
I have had the same bank account all this time.
Whilst I cannot easily access the records from over a decade ago, I also believe that HMRC can't show any income into my account which is loans based.
My belief is that they have done no more than mail merge say 50,000 records of known contractors and are speculatively writing to them all with menaces and stating a frankly ludicrous position, in the hope of fear and shame uncovering missing money.
I've had nothing.
Mark

[eek]

Perhaps I am naive but mine is that I owe nothing and will provide nothing.

You are naive. The simple version is that the loan charge shifted all income received as loans into taxable income received on April 5th 2019 which means it falls into the 2018/19 tax year which meant HMRC had to April 5th 2023 to write (not send, write and date) notifications and you’ve just received it.

get specialist advice because this isn’t going to go away and given what you have written it’s clear to see that HMRC could quickly increase that fine from £9000 to far, far more than that.

[Fred Bloggs]

Perhaps I am naive but mine is that I owe nothing and will provide nothing.

Be very careful proceeding down that route. Set aside the anger and feeling of injustice because not cooperating with HMRC isn't really a very good idea.

[markrammond]

Hi,
I received what sounds like a similar letter from HMRC a few days ago.
It states that I received disguised remuneration in loans between April 2011 and April 2014 from a Procorre.
I was either an employee on PAYE or not working for all this period except from Feb 7 until March 9 in 2012.
So I was on a day rate for maybe 20-25 days.
I think it was £500 a day paid via the Blue Pelican payroll.
During the time I was on the contract I got contacted by an Irish sounding guy from I think it was a Barclay Carter and he had links to other companies, one called Rousseau International and there were links to Switzerland and Singapore.
I was interested and started to complete the paperwork when the contract was pulled, so nothing ever went from me or the client to any of these third parties.
I seem to remember something being submitted to HMRC on the self assessment side from that company with some very nominal sums, if anything.
Anyway I have had a letter with some huge amounts all over it, it is hard to follow and compose but I will try my best.
HMRC have claimed I have had over £200k of income from Procorre between April 2011 and April 2014.
They have somehow decided to reopen the tax year of 2018/19 to force this into the books.
There is not a scrap of evidence presented e.g. anything which shows money from this Procorre to me.
The letter claims that I owe £33k personally and that the scheme owner/employer owes £55k, also there is a £9k penalty to me. Also I may stand to have to pay the £55k as well according to the letter.
If this is the same Procorre that seems to be trading out of Bristol, it is a bit unclear as to why HMRC feel I owe them the Procorre slice also, as Procorre would seem to be within their easy reach.
They seem to have opened up the case against me with some kind of Tax act and gone back the decade with this so called undeclared income.
I phoned HMRC and pointed out that their records show I was on PAYE for all the periods I was working, but obviously you don't get to talk to the eggheads who look through the data and make assertions.
I have appealed as I don't have any connection to a Procorre and the sums involved on my short contract were probably about £10k paid through Blue Pelican.
My opinion is this is just one big fishing trip to try and scare money out of me with menaces.
I've told them I owe them nowt.
They haven't got an electronic trail of me getting cash from these so called loans.
That is because they don't exist.
I guess my next stage is to wait till I hear from HMRC.
I have tried to read up on the various info online because to be honest whilst it is all nonsense assertions I read the OP post and the cap has been fitted on me too.
My assumption is that HMRC have nothing concrete whatsoever other than my name was on a database or mailing list to do with Rousseau, and the rest is made up.
I think they have tried to claim that every penny their software shows as going into my account from 2011 to 2014 is disguised remuneration.
That is a starting position from them.
Perhaps I am naive but mine is that I owe nothing and will provide nothing.
Mark

[srowell8]

Hi Everyone,

I have been struggling on this. Will be very grateful if anyone can advise or if anyone went through the same as me.

I received a penalty of a big sum from HMRC to pay for the loan that I never took. I am told that I took some employment loan from Procore. But I never worked for them.
However, I worked as a contractor for 11 months from my Limited company, via 2 consulting agencies [5 months with 1st, and then 6 months with the next],but I did not take the pay from those 2 consulting agencies as Loan. I received the pay as mentioned on my contract.

I paid the Taxes with my accountant accordingly and then dissolved my company later.


Has anyone received these sort of letters for loans they did not take? Anything else that I need to check, any other suggestions from anyone?


Thank you.
-

Sounds very similar (bu not exactly the same) as me, i was never told by the agent (Barclay Carter - who I now know are "Project Supples Ltd" on companies house) and run by the same people as Procorre (Anne O'Donnell)) or Procorre it was a loan, in fact the opposite, both myself and my accountant told them we just wanted paid what was in the contract, nothing in advance, and that once the contract was finished the account should be closed (all in emails). We were totally mislead - what were the names of the consulting agencies you dealt with ?

[Fred Bloggs]

Thank you for all replies..I am working with a Tax advisor to proceed on how to reply HMRC.

Be careful choosing a tax advisor. Some advisors out there are perhaps not quite as they seem at face value. If you were recommended a tax advisor by an agency or an accountant then I would be very nervous indeed about using that advisor.

[enquiryuser]

I repeat this post. I’m not sure how much we’ll be able to help here WTFH.

Thank you for all replies..I am working with a Tax advisor to proceed on how to reply HMRC.

[cojak]

I repeat this post. I’m not sure how much we’ll be able to help here WTFH.

We are sorry too, but there isn't much point asking us - we haven't the access to your contracts and we are not tax specialists.

You need to speak to a tax specialist regarding your situation - HMRC rarely make mistakes regarding whether you did or didn't use a scheme.

(They makes loads of mistakes regarding the amount owed, but not on this point.)

[WTFH]

Sorry, I am trying to understand how this is relevant in this scenario. As the letter states about loan I was paid by Procorre.

OK, it's relevant because most of the schemes meant that someone ended up taking home more money than might be expected.
So the question is simply, after tax how much did you take home as a percentage of your daily rate.

[enquiryuser]

OK, what I'm asking is, let's say your contract rate as agreed was £500 per day.
That £500 was paid into your Limited Company bank account.

Roughly how much of that £500 went into your personal bank account?

Sorry, I am trying to understand how this is relevant in this scenario. As the letter states about loan I was paid by Procorre.

[WTFH]

I received the pay as per the contract rate.

OK, what I'm asking is, let's say your contract rate as agreed was £500 per day.
That £500 was paid into your Limited Company bank account.

Roughly how much of that £500 went into your personal bank account?