Are HMRC Making You Sweat Over Christmas?

Here’s my theory, there’s a lot of frighting post arrives on the mat from HMRC on a Saturday morning. That means you’ve got two days before you can talk to your accountant / tax advisor. It’s a real – and a deliberate – twist of the screw.

Also on a big public holiday – like Christmas – you’d be amazed the amount of scary post that will have hit people across the UK. I mean Christmas is stressful enough right! And you’ve got nobody to go to for advice for at least a week.

My worst Christmas ever was during my investigation. After four years of hammering me HMRC had sent a final bill for around £6k. I said I was going to appeal and HMRC sent me a letter that said, “If you are going to appeal, it’s not going to be £6k, it’s going to be £12k”.

I mean, what are they 8? Anyway that Christmas was grim, I had two young children an wife who had started to talk about divorce. I stopped sleeping. I’d just stay in bed with everything spinning through my head.

I’ve talked with many HMRC and ex-HMRC professionals about this and they’ve said that my theory is total rubbish. They say, all the post is filed through the week. HMRC employees often work flexitime and they take Friday off, so all the post goes second class on Thursday. You get it Saturday. It’s as simple as that.

I’m still not convinced, so if you’ve got bad news on the mat today, just in time for the Christmas holidays drop me an email or comment (anonymously) below.