Them's the rules!

[goudie]

Bomber Command Memorial fundraiser faces loss of home after taxman keeps £40,000 he paid in error - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/raf-bomber-command/11776979/Bomber-Command-Memorial-fundraiser-faces-loss-of-home-after-taxman-keeps-40000-he-paid-in-error.html)

[glad rag]

Don't know quite what I find the most appalling HMRC or your attitude to their fraudulent behaviour.

[Chugalug2]

To my mind this is a direct result of successive UK Governments reneging on their responsibilities. If they had not turned their backs on the prodigious sacrifice made by Bomber Command in WW2 and disowned it instead, the absurd situation of it being left to pop singers to shoulder the responsibility instead need never have happened.

The prejudiced thin lipped mandarins, that have never faced a greater danger than pricking themselves on the pins holding their paperwork together (contrary to clearly laid down HSE regulations), do not speak for the majority of our citizens, a great many of whom put their money where their mouths are by supporting the building of this memorial.

Of course this man must be given all the money back that he is owed by HMRC. Of course he will be, no doubt by the direct intervention of our glorious leader. Shame on him then. This is not a political opportunity, rather a condemnation of generations of politicians.

[Melchett01]

Sorry, but 'them's not the rules at all'.

On the one hand there is a limit of 4 years for an individual to make a claim against HMRC for tax rebates and yet in the same paper there is a story of HMRC making claims against individuals going back 10-12 years.

Tell me now that them's the rules. Bloody outrageous.

[Lima Juliet]

Before we all jump on the 'outrage bus' can we consider that the overpayment of income tax and the Bomber Command Memorial work are completely seperate issues?

As I read it, this chap has failed to claim his overpayment back within the legislated 4 year period. That is his fault in my mind. The fact that he has done such a great job on the memorial is mostly irrelevant in the eyes of the law that stipulates you can only claim back the last 4 years.

If they grant him an extension over 4 years then why not everyone else?

You can't have one law for one person and another for the rest - that goes back 800 years to Magna Carta!

LJ

[goudie]

My title for this thread, 'them's the rules' was meant to be a sarcastic stab at the HMRC, not an agreement with their rules.

[Willard Whyte]

My title for this thread, 'them's the rules' was meant to be a sarcastic stab at the HMRC, not an agreement with their rules.

Which is exactly how anyone with more than a modicum of intelligence would have taken it.

[Melchett01]

You can't have one law for one person and another for the rest - that goes back 800 years to Magna Carta!

But that's exactly what HMRC do!

[Roadster280]

So they only allow retrospective claims for four years, to provide "fiscal finality" (there's a thread for that terminology!), yet allow themselves to deny the taxpayer's fiscal finality for up to 12 years?

Not right.

[cockney steve]

Typical example of petty officialdom abusing the granting of too much authority. Sack the incompetent knobber who made this decision.....their job is to check the tax-return and ensure the correct tax has been paid.

Either they did check it, knew it was wrong and wilfully and fraudulently denied a rebate to the "customer" (NO! you knobheads, they're the bloody source of your income! IE indirectly, your employers! you are supposedly CIVIL SERVANTS - many are neither civil nor servile, in it's loosest sense of being of service)
OR the taxpayer made a return which was fictional but believable and has been hoist with his own petard.
As LJ said, whilst his fundraising is laudable, it is not relevant to the issue under discussion, IE duplicitous, arrogantofficials abusing their position.

[Davef68]

It used to be you could claim back 6 years, but they changed that to 4. I got caught out on that one when I discovered I had been overpaying (based on an alolowance I didn't know I could claim) but only lost a few 100s.

[glad rag]

goudie/Willard??

It allows those of us who are not blessed with either second sight or unspeakable arrogance to determine the actual connotation of that title; considering the link [your only clue, goudie, that was given] it was somewhat unclear if you were berating HMRC or the Gent himself...

[goudie]

Them's the rules!

glad rag, I understand your confusion, but those who are members of the 'jobs worth' community and feel beholden to no-one, tend to quote that statement. Perhaps I should have made my stance clearer.