Vat

[Andrew]

The vat are literally a law unto themselves.

I currently have a dispute with them that I will obviously lose as it is their rules. It started when they went from paper returns to paperless. We had endless problems registering on the HMRC website and they could never tell us why as there were so many loops to jump through. The date was looming for the change over to paperless and it still hadn't been resolved for us to go that way so I phoned them and they said to your usual print off and payment as previous returns which we did. We found out last week we had a fine on the system for not making a payment for that period even though they took the money. I was basically told (as the lady on the phone was quite helpful and chatty) they would have put the return in the bin and just allocated the cheque onto our account. They then left that period as not filed and didn't bother to tell us. Once you get on the wrong side of the rails you really have no rights and they don't really care.

[bms]

Is this a case of 'the computer says "no"' even though you've talked to a human. The computer must be right (yeah, whatever...)

[Andrew]

Is this a case of 'the computer says "no"' even though you've talked to a human. The computer must be right (yeah, whatever...)

That's basically what I was told on the phone last week. Once it got to the friendly stage of the chat she slagged off HMRC a fair bit in the way they can make things very complicated and then say tough luck.