Inland Revenue gets tricksy

A tax manager at UK accountancy group UHY Hacker Young has warned of an Inland Revenue catch currently snaring unwary taxpayers.

Richard Lloyd-Warne of Hacker Young recently received a letter from the Inland Revenue telling him not to bother completing a tax return next year.

At first, Lloyd-Warne was delighted, but on closer reading found there was a catch.

Like hundreds of thousands of other people, my tax affairs are pretty straightforward. My PAYE code is based on my previous years earnings. I complete an annual tax return and generally receive a small rebate each year. The Revenues offer that I need not complete a tax return seems kind hearted on the surface, but it actually means they wont need to send me the rebate that Im entitled to receive. I have spoke to a number of other people in the same situation and they have all received similar letters.

Mr Lloyd-Warne believes that this is a deliberate policy on the part of the Revenue to reduce legitimate refunds to taxpayers by making them an offer seemingly too good to miss.

In recent years the revenue has come in for heavy criticism for its inability to stamp out wide-scale tax evasion and fraud.