HMRC fritter £10k in Self Assessment penalty blunder

For me and you losing £10k in a day would be a disaster, but for HMRC it’s just another day at the office. The latest blunder comes after HMRC sent out 2,000 penalty notices to people who have been taken out of the Self Assessment process.

Calculators out! It’s £9960 wasted – franked mail was 39p so £4680 for the blunder and an additional £5280 for the apology letters. Then of course there is the labour, envelopes, paper and ink.

A HMRC spokesman said: “We have identified that nearly 12,000 people have been sent a Self Assessment daily penalty letter in error. We are very sorry and can reassure these customers that we know who they are and that this letter is incorrect – they do not owe a penalty. We are writing to all of them to apologise and to explain this error.

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