Make sure you pay your tax bill or they will be after your house!

[renewablejohn]

Be very afraid of HMRC. They can do an assessment for tax which they believe you owe and then its up to you to defend the case in a tax tribunal where all the cards are stacked in HMRC favour. Its the only part of UK law that I know where you are assumed guilty and you have to prove your innocence.

[egnsean]

They will take your house, for default of payment, and for far less than you think. And if you think it's easy to just pay them and get it back, it isn't, it takes a long time and a lot of legal expenses to take on HMRCE. Don't take the risk.

 

your quite right Andy, i know a lad that had to sell his car and caravan to pay his tax bill due to threats from HMRC and it wasn't a large amount as you say dont take the risk.

[Andy Collins]

It took me two years of legal battles with HMRCE to get my Dads house back off them, for an original debt of £6700 in unpaid taxes. Simple I thought, offer to pay the debt and get the house back. No. They put on all legal fees of their case, compound interest on the original amount. After two years the debt had spiralled to £27k. I'm not defending my dad for his non payment, that was silly and he lost a £320k house for £6,700, if he'd asked I'd have paid it for him. I'm not blaming HMRCE, they have to recoup the costs and debts, can't have people defaulting, country would collapse financially.

[egnsean]

It took me two years of legal battles with HMRCE to get my Dads house back off them, for an original debt of £6700 in unpaid taxes. Simple I thought, offer to pay the debt and get the house back. No. They put on all legal fees of their case, compound interest on the original amount. After two years the debt had spiralled to £27k. I'm not defending my dad for his non payment, that was silly and he lost a £320k house for £6,700, if he'd asked I'd have paid it for him. I'm not blaming HMRCE, they have to recoup the costs and debts, can't have people defaulting, country would collapse financially.

 

Bloody scary, i mean anyone can have problems and fall on hard times, im not defending anyone who deliberatly evades tax, its just the Draconian measures they will take to recover it and their trying to make these measures easier to enforce

[GardenKit]

The other thread about putting money aside to pay tax is very relevant, after all, we only pay tax when we are having good times, it is after all, a tax on profit and we know in advance that if we make profit we will be liable for tax.

 

If, has been mentioned, we fall on hard times our tax liability also falls.

 

So as long as we keep the money aside that we know we need to pay the taxman, we wont lose our house, caravan,car, cat or anything else.

 

Its in our own hands.

[egnsean]

The other thread about putting money aside to pay tax is very relevant, after all, we only pay tax when we are having good times, it is after all, a tax on profit and we know in advance that if we make profit we will be liable for tax.

 

If, has been mentioned, we fall on hard times our tax liability also falls.

 

So as long as we keep the money aside that we know we need to pay the taxman, we wont lose our house, caravan,car, cat or anything else.

 

Its in our own hands.

This is true but my friends problems started when he broke his leg at work then the following week his wife lost her job he was off work for three months so he dipped into the money he had saved for tax as he had no other money to live on when he was ready to return to work others had been hired to do the work all this was explained to the inland revenue who weren't interested they just threatened him, so you see its not always in your own hands.

[j r hartly]

Or direct debit ?

 

trees, waves and cakes!!:-)

[Steve Bullman]

Thats what accident insurance is for....so to be fair, still in your own hands

[WorcsWuss]

This is true but my friends problems started when he broke his leg at work then the following week his wife lost her job he was off work for three months so he dipped into the money he had saved for tax as he had no other money to live on when he was ready to return to work others had been hired to do the work all this was explained to the inland revenue who weren't interested they just threatened him, so you see its not always in your own hands.

 

Unfortunately it is. That's why we should have income protection insurance.

I know it's easy to say and perceived to be less easy to do, but everything we need to protect ourselves is there for the taking.

I have a salary.

I have no IPI.

I know full well that if I have an accident one weekend up a tree and cannot work, that I have no means to pay my bills.

I also know that I can't afford to pay for IPI because I choose to run 4 cars.

Therefore, should I find myself up the creek I know full well, in advance, that it is my fault.

I keep saying that I will get some insurance, but something always comes up.

It's the gamble we all take. I won't expect anything more than 'told you so' if I find myself in an unfortunate situation. From my own mouth.

[WorcsWuss]

Oh! I got beaten to the punch!