The Charity Commission has issued a bulletin about this. Charity banking - GOV.UK
This is one aspect of the farrago (or Farage-o!) of debanking i.e non-banking as expatiated in this Forum passim
It confirms my long-standing and firmly held conviction that the aggregate IQ of all known bankers is not a positive number. The Nationwide adverts support this: the Dominic West character is a paradigm of the species. Trebles all round!
Jack Harpe
Jack
I would not disagree but it hurts me [ I passed all my banking exams in the late 1960s when bankers were bankers! ] as does the current state of HMRC compared with the Inland Revenue when I worked for them.
Andrew
Dear Jack & Andrew,
Have you heard of Double’s Law which is that the seniority of a civil servant is in direct proportion to the square area of his backside? i.e he does nothing, makes no decisions which can be traced back to him and avoids all criticisms as he is protecting his pension pot and seniority.
Peter Double / Probate RS
And prides himself or herself on the illustrious and exclusive capability to brilliantly administer even at the shortest notice complex matters of which he or she (they or ze) are blissfully and comprehensively ignorant and preferably will remain so. This is why they congregate and self-congratulate in The First Division Association. They are self-evidently modest and as Churchill (most unfairly) said of Attlee they have much to be modest about. They have always thought they ran the country and now they actually do.
[ Not applicable to my splendid hard-working Niece of course]
Jack Harper
Please Jack and the other contributors to this commentary, try to avoid mentioning civil servants as the very mention of the breed fills me with anger, following my recent negative experiences trying to communicate with someone at HMRC inheritance tax and HMRC income tax. To start with, I spent 45 minutes listening to the bland music Before I could speak with a human being. Initially I was querying the position in 2 IHT cases where in one case I had not received a reply to my initial letter sent in July 2023 at which time I had paid just under £10,000 tax and interest, following the reopening of the case which arose because of a sizeable compensation payment from an Australian bank. I was told the calculation had been sent to me in January, and in fact they had calculated that there was a small overpayment by me (ugh). I asked them to send me the calculation again As I had not received it and I enquired why The refund had not been paid yet to which the officer said he was surprised, also! In the other case where I was expecting a refund of around £26,000, I was told that the calculation had also been sent to me in April but again had not reached me. Again, I asked why the refund had not been paid and again the person I spoke to expressed surprise that it had not, but. that they would now do so, although it would most likely take 30 days!
Enquiring about the income tax case again, involved a lengthy wait with the same music It really was a rather simple matter of trying to get HMRC to confirm acceptance of the report of untaxed income received during the administration of the estate, a fairly simple and common procedure which should take no more than five minutes to respond to with instructions for payment. I had written three letters. The last of which was a formal complaint and was told that all of these had been received and passed to the department responsible but that they would now try and deal with the matter in the next 20 days I think. How do you make a complaint about a complaints department I ask?
I’m sorry to bore everyone with this, but I am most concerned at the lack of urgency that one is experiencing when dealing with HMRC As it is prolonging the administration of estates unnecessarily. incidentally, during one of those calls when I had got through, and the person was looking into the matter, I got disconnected, but needless to say they did not ring back, even though I’m aware that my number would’ve been on their screen.
Patrick Moroney
Our family member’s case continues. HMRC are chasing Residential Property CGT paid on time in September 2022. They have sent us 4 computer-generated chasing letters. We have replied 3 times, the last on June 2 was a formal complaint. None either acknowledged or responded to.
The first letter enclosed a receipt for the tax and a 64-8 naming me as agent. By telephone this week they admitted receiving all our letters and that the tax was paid. It seems likely that they have failed to link the PPD payment with the liability returned on the 2023 return in January 2024. I complained to the Adjudicator this week.
I have been able to reassure the taxpayer that they need not worry but the latest HMRC letter threatened a debt collection agency. They say they cannot stop these letters coming. I say computers should be our servants not our Masters.This could have terrified another taxpayer and driven them to unnecessary professional costs.
HMRC, Don’tcher just love them?
Patrick, contact the Adjudicator. You can do this online https://www.gov.uk/guidance/contact-the-adjudicators-office
Jack Harper
Jack Harper
May I thoroughly recommend the HMRC Complaint Handling Guidance Complaint Handling Guidance - HMRC internal manual - GOV.UK
This seems to have been compiled in association with the Uriah Heep PR Agency and Monty Python. No taxpayers have been harmed, nor possibly even helped, in the making of this manual.
CHG810 and 615 are satire of the highest quality
Jack Harper