Taxman penalises someone after they pay too much tax

1 min read Published: 15 Apr 2010

The Telegraph reports that a taxpayer who paid too much tax to HM Revenue & Customs has been fined £1,400 for making a mistake when he asked for a rebate.

The self-employed man from Kent, who has not been named, tried to reclaim £3,000 in overpaid tax for the year to April 2009, but Revenue & Customs calculated that he was owed £1,000 and fined him £1,400 for the error.

Under new penalty regulations, the Revenue can fine taxpayers up to 30 per cent of tax owed for careless mistakes and up to 100 per cent for errors that it believes were deliberate and "concealed" mistakes.

Lawyers said that this was the first time they had ever heard of someone being fined for a mistake on their request for a rebate.

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Unbelievable! Proof that the world has gone mad. It's no wonder that everyone hates the tax man