A report by the Daily Mail states worryingly – five million workers in chaos over their tax bill:
Leaked memo reveals HMRC has sent wrong demands twice
- Thousands more workers were sent tax statements that were incorrect
- Blunder comes as HMRC requests new powers to take unpaid taxes directly from bank accounts
- Every year, around five million workers are found to have under or overpaid
- Government must contact each one with a new tax statement
- But now HMRC has admitted thousands of these were miscalculated
- Believed to have been caused by incomplete information from employers
The taxman is facing fresh embarrassment after it emerged that thousands more workers were sent tax statements that were in fact incorrect.
The blunder comes at a time when HM Revenue and Customs is requesting new powers to take unpaid taxes directly from taxpayers’ bank accounts.
Every year, around five million workers are found to have under or overpaid through the Pay As You Earn system.
This can be for a variety of reasons, including because they have moved jobs or taken a second income.
The Government must contact each one with a new tax statement telling them how much they must either claw back, by changing their tax code, or how much they must reimburse them.
Now HMRC, which has a history of blunders, has admitted thousands of these were miscalculated – an error they were alerted to after being contacted by concerned workers
It said ‘thousands’ of statements sent out to customers showed ‘an incorrect overpayment or underpayment’ during 2013-14.
The leaked letter said they were ‘very sorry’ about the incorrect calculations and they were ‘urgently investigating these cases’.