Semi-retired landlord Richard Eaton has never missed a tax deadline until this year.
Richard, 65, has been locked out of his Government Gateway account since early December and has been unable to get access to file his taxes.
This is despite making 15 calls to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and sending several letters in an attempt to unfreeze his account.
With just hours to go until tonight’s tax filing deadline, he now fears he will have to pay hefty late filing and payment penalties and face high interest rates if the matter remains unresolved.
Anyone who misses the January 31 deadline will automatically be fined £100. After three months, you will face additional daily fines of £10, up to a maximum of £900.
Cut off: People seeking help are finding it difficult to talk to anyone after HMRC’s decision to reduce helpline service from December 11 to the end of January
If you don’t file a tax return for a whole year, you could be hit with a bill for £1,600. HMRC also charges 7.75 percent interest on late payments.
Richard says: ‘All I’m trying to do is do the right thing by paying my taxes – why can’t they help?’
Taxpayers like Richard are facing nerve-wracking hours ahead of tonight’s tax return deadline as a customer service slump at HMRC is preventing many from filing and paying their taxes on time, Money Mail can reveal.
According to research by asset manager Handelsbanken, more than 475,000 self-employed people are expected to miss the midnight deadline because they have difficulty completing their tax returns. Last week, almost four million people still had to file their tax returns.
Our mailbag is packed with letters from more than a hundred readers expressing their frustration at HMRC’s poor customer service in the run-up to the tax self-assessment deadline.
Many tell us that they have gone to great lengths to pay their taxes, but have been blocked by inefficiencies within the tax administration, including years of waiting for responses to letters, a lack of knowledge among officials and long wait times on the phone.
The fight paints a depressing picture of a department that should welcome taxpayers’ efforts to pay their taxes on time. In Richard’s case, the tax authorities’ incompetence led to him losing a crucial offer for a new mortgage.
The 65-year-old’s troubles started on November 28 when he clicked on a scam link in an email from fraudsters posing as HMRC, asking him to update his contact details.
‘I naively clicked on the link and entered my login details for the Government Gateway. I had just contacted HMRC so fell for it.
However, I quickly realized it looked dodgy and logged into the real Government Gateway to reset my password. I thought it would end there.”
But on December 2, when Richard tried to log into his account, he couldn’t because HMRC had suspended it due to unusual activity.
Squeezed: Anyone who misses the deadline will automatically be fined £100. After three months, you will face additional daily fines of £10, capped at £900
During a series of calls, he was told by one official that he would have to wait six weeks for his account to be active again, another claimed it would take eight weeks, while a third said they could not provide a time frame. am working on it.
“My stress levels went through the roof,” he says. ‘No one could give me a straight answer or help me access my account. It’s hopeless.
‘Some operators say they can’t help and then hang up, so you have to call again and have to deal with the long waiting times again.’
On December 15, out of ‘sheer desperation’, Richard wrote a letter of complaint detailing the serious problems he was facing.
‘Needless to say, I have yet to receive a response from HMRC.’
Richard has since missed the December 31 capital gains tax filing deadline and he and his wife lost a bid to remortgage his house.
“The best deal available fell through because I couldn’t file my tax returns for the past three years, including the year 2022-2023,” he says.
‘At our age we are not exactly inundated with mortgage offers. I have explained this to numerous customer service representatives on the helpline, but am repeatedly told that there is nothing they can do to recover my account until I am contacted by the security team.”
After Money Mail intervened, HMRC has said Richard will not face penalties for late filing and payment.
A spokesperson said no one identified as the victim of a scam attack and whose online account has been suspended will face fines for filing their returns or paying their taxes late.
Money Mail this month exposed the shocking extent of the customer service breakdown at HMRC.
We revealed how people seeking help are finding it difficult to talk to someone before the tax return deadline, following HMRC’s surprise decision to reduce service on its helpline from December 11 to the end of January.
Fines: More than 475,000 self-employed people are expected to miss the midnight deadline
An Edinburgh reader says she will be among hundreds of thousands who will miss tonight’s deadline, despite filing her paper return in October.
The freelance writer, who wishes to remain anonymous, has not yet received a letter or message stating how much tax she must pay.
“I am very aware of the dire warnings that we are not making payments on time,” she said. ‘I’m afraid I’ll get fined, even if it’s not my fault.
‘I tried calling but HMRC’s phone line is a nightmare and you can’t navigate through it to talk to anyone. I wrote a letter, but who knows when it will be answered.’
A tax expert, who has run an accountancy business for 35 years, tells Money Mail that in a recent case it took HMRC 13 months to send out letters responding to paper tax returns.
Mark Collins, head of tax at Handelsbanken Wealth and Asset Management, says those with a reasonable excuse for missing the deadline can avoid fines, but there is a risk of a £100 fine even if no tax is due paid, and that the fines can quickly add up.
He says: ‘Self-assessing returns is clearly a challenge for significant numbers of self-employed people, with many at risk of missing the deadline and others struggling to complete returns.’
Deadline: A slump in customer service at HM Revenue and Customs is leaving many employees unable to file and pay their taxes on time
Barbara Cox says her efforts to pay taxes were aborted at the first hurdle. The pensioner applied for a Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) number in June last year to complete a self-assessment tax return. But she says she never received a response.
She says: ‘Since then I have tried to call them constantly, at all times of the day. I got totally annoyed because no matter what time I called, no one ever answered the phone and it just rang. I tried to contact them by phone for months but to no avail.
‘I wrote to them, explaining that I was trying to obtain a UTR again in October and November. I sent the letters by registered mail, but never received a response from them.’
As a last resort, she turned to a friend with experience in tax returns, who suggested she send her an estimate of the tax she thought she owed by check.
‘Within two days HMRC put my check in the bank. Such a shame that they couldn’t have responded to me so quickly if they had taken my money and spared me the anxiety when I had tried so hard to do the right thing and pay my taxes.’
Barbara has now received several reminders to file a report online and fears that she will still receive a fine.
She says: ‘I find it absolutely terrible that such an organization can be so unprofessional. I’m now waiting to see if I get an automatic fine even though they have my check. HMRC is not fit for purpose, it’s a shame.’
An HMRC spokesperson said: ‘Our online services and telephone lines are operating as normal, with filings taking place well in advance of the self-assessment deadline.
‘Customers are successfully using our digital services to get the help they need as it is the quickest and easiest way for most, meaning people don’t have to wait on the phone.
‘This gives our expert advisors the space to help people with urgent and more complex questions, as well as the small number of people who cannot access our online services.
‘Millions of people already arrange their taxes online and more than 80 percent are satisfied with their experience.’
j.beard@dailymail.co.uk
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