Penalty for not completing tax return - could be good news??

Most certainly. Although you might just be able to avoid form-filling by simply writing to your local IR tax office, setting out the payments you made (photocopies of pension statements are probably useful to enclose), and asking for your back tax liabilities to be recalculated. Don't forget to ask for the interest on the back tax, too. *grin* Hey, it's worth a go! They might still ask you to fill in Tax Returns anyway, but you might save yourself some trouble.

Usually not all that long. At this time of year, probably about 4 weeks after assessment, in my neck of the woods.

Jon

The penalty for a late filing of an SA return is *not* 100, but the lower of 100 and the outstanding tax at 31 January 2004 (for a 2002-03 Return). If there is a repayment due to you for 2002-03, then the penalty will be reduced to Nil.

I received fine letters and phone calls from the IR for a few years.

In my case the probleem was that I had not returned a Tax Return to a specific Tax office that had not sent me one in the first place. ie. I get a return from Cardiff and return it - they send me a statement and I pay it. Then I get a call from Debt Recovery or a letter from Glasgow (who took me of job in the December after I had got the statement.) To say that I had not returned my form to Glasgow. This was sorted out, they cancelled the fine - I got a return from Glasgow for the next year and sent it back. Got statement, paid etc. Then get fined for not sending in a return... to CROYDON!!!!!! not sure where they came into it. Eventually got it all sorted out and no more calls/letters this year.

The problem was that instead of being using my NI number (which I only have one of) they used a UID instead, of which I had three. All seems OK for now anyway.

I presume you mean UTR which stands for Unique Taxpayer Reference, so unique you have three, the system seems a total mess with one hand using NI numbers and the other UTRs. Assuming the return has the correct UTR on you should be able to return it to any tax office (although its a good idea to get a reciept if you return it to anywhere but the issuing office as I have know the inland revenue loose such returns transfering them - generally 31st January submissions of clients returns when they haven't provided the information until the 29th January and which we have processed and then hand delivered to the nearest tax office)

UTR, that's the one. I think I only have one now. But they were Unique, no two were the same. I always returned the forms by the September deadline, to the issuing office. By the time the Debt Recovery (or whatever the dept is called) phoned up I had the statement/calculation, request for payment, and a receipt for payment in my hand. Each time they were able to clear everything up very quickly - It just took two years to find everything that needed clearing up.