Tax Hell rescues another unrepresented taxpayer
Always great to get feedback from people who have been helped by Tax Hell. Here’s a typical story
HMRC went to town on this unrepresented individual; asking to documents they were not entitled to see, claiming correspondence has been sent (when it hasn’t) and threatening frightening penalties. YF bought the ebook and quickly saw these were standard HMRC tactics. Once Tax Hell was on the scene HMRC changed their approach and today the case has been closed with YF owning nothing. Here is his story in his own words:
“In January last year [2014] I received a letter from HMRC demanding I send them documents that had allegedly been requested in a previous correspondence two months earlier. The thing is, I had never received the first letter. The whole experience was a nightmare from day one I called them to say so and ask why they seemed to be throwing the book at me requesting information dating back seven years only to be told that if I didn’t supply the required information I would be fined.
“Fearing the worst, I called Tax-Hell and was referred to a tax investigation specialist who agreed to act on my behalf. When he saw the HMRC requests he immediately got HMRC to withdraw some of the requests because they were invalid. He also insisted on seeing the first letter. Despite repeated requests HMRC never complied eventually saying only that they will write a new letter demanding new information.
“HMRC were essentially concerned with seeing my bank statements for the year 2012-2013 for which I had not submitted a return owing to the death of my father. As a freelancer I had done a few pieces of work amounting to about £1700 that was not declared. I was reluctant to send them because I did not want them to trawl through my personal transactions. What have I learnt? HMRC are bullies. They will try it on when they know you are acting alone. The matter dragged on for over a year as HMRC continued to insist of seeing the statements even though I had informed them of the undeclared income for that year. All the while HMRC insisted on seeing the entirety of my bank statements, both income and outgoings.
“In the end we decided to defy HMRC and send them redacted statements showing just my income. Shortly afterwards HMRC wrote back saying they were wrapping up their investigation, apparently satisfied that I had no further undeclared income.
“The whole experience was a nightmare from day one. HMRC were not only heavy handed in their dealings with me but they had also actually acted outside their own remit in several matters. Firstly, I don’t believe they ever sent me an initial letter because despite asking for it on several occasions they refused to send me a copy.
“Secondly, they threatened me with fines if I didn’t comply. In the end we decided to defy HMRC and send them redacted statements with the information request knowing full well that some of their requests were invalid. Thirdly they continued to hound me for FULL accounts even though they knew there was no tax risk to be identified from my outgoings.
“What have I learnt? HMRC are bullies. They will try it on when they know you are acting alone. However, the moment that you get a qualified representative to help you, they will back off and start playing by the rules. I now believe that HMRC had not identified any risks that would prompt them to investigate me but were purely conducting a trawling exercise to see if they could get me to divulge information that they could then use to construct a case.
“Without the help of Tax-Hell I would not have been able to achieve the outcome I desired. In fact the eventual result was actually far better than I anything I could have imagined.
YF”
(Full name supplied)
