The Taxpayers Charter & how it can help you
Many ordinary working taxpayers do not even know it exists, but The Taxpayers Charter is there to make sure that HMRC give you a service that is even-handed, accurate and based on mutual trust and respect. HMRC also want to make it as easy as possible for you to get things right.
The Charter is there to protect you and, better still, it gives you certain rights. In return for 3 simple obligations on your part (honesty, respect for HMRC staff and diligence to get things right) HMRC promises to:
- Respect you.
This includes treating you with courtesy and making you aware of your rights; - Help and support you to get things right.
This includes processing the information you supply as quickly and accurately as possible and also correcting any mistakes as quickly as they can; - Treat you as honest.
This includes only questioning what you tell them if they have good grounds to do so; - Treat you even-handedly.
This includes consideration of any financial difficulties which you may be having and explaining what you can do if you disagree with their decisions, or if you wish to make a complaint; - Be professional and act with integrity.
Critically, this includes a useful sub-clause to ‘make sure that you are dealt with by people who have the right level of expertise‘ and another to ‘let you know how appeals, investigations or complaints are progressing‘. Here at Taxfile we feel that these may be the most helpful clauses of all, judging by past history; - Tackle people who deliberately break the rules and challenge those who bend the rules;
- Protect your information and respect your privacy.
This includes a sub-clause to respect your legal rights when they visit premises; - Accept that someone else can represent you;
Hey – we would be happy to represent you!
- Do all we can to keep the cost of dealing with us as low as possible.
For example if you, or your representative (see clause 8 above) feel that an HMRC officer is relentlessly dragging out a tax enquiry with perhaps unfair queries, creating unnecessary work, then Read more
Part of the Chancellor’s recent Budget included plans to recover tax owed to the Treasury direct from the debtor’s bank account — all done directly and without a Court Order being necessary. This has been criticised widely but HMRC says that only 17,000 people in the UK per year would fall into this potential scenario and that it would only occur for those owing more than £1,000 in unpaid tax or tax credits owed. Moreover they say that they would only target long-standing tax debts from those who had received a minimum of 4 payment demands and whose bank and savings accounts combined had a minimum total balance of £5,000 or more remaining after any tax bad been directly seized. Also the debtor involved will have been issued with a final warning period of 14 days, during which the funds concerned would be frozen, before any tax was directly withdrawn.