The P800 process as it stands (Year ended 5 April 2016)

HMRC appear to be trying to be helpful by working out from the information they hold whether taxpayers have underpaid or overpaid tax. But the system is horribly flawed because HMRC are short of human intervention to ensure there is ‘quality control’ on the output.

We have seen:-

• Informal assessment issued when someone has been issued with a notice to file a self-assessment return.
• An informal assessment issued even after a self-assessment tax return has been filed for the year because HMRC have failed to note that the person is in self-assessment already. In this case the client was getting the same refund twice!
• Using actual figures for savings income and dividend income from previous tax returns filed under self-assessment as estimates in the informal assessments without making it clear on the face of the calculation that these are estimates – the result – clients getting refunds that they are not entitled to, and other clients not being assessed to enough tax!