Wednesday 27 of August, 2025

I am due a tax refund from June last year. Even without the loss on the business accounts, the amount of PAYE taken was too much as the tax code was wrong, but after the business accounts were added in April then the whole amount became refundable. What I failed to appreciate back in April was that the tax return SHOULD have shown that refund, but the way I read things was that other checks would check what was owing. The system went on to explain that processing a refund would take at least 12 weeks and not to contact them in that period. Which I didn't. When I did ring three weeks back I was told that the refund had been processed the day before and would be paid within 10 working days, so I thought no more about it. I anticipated the the bank holiday would extend that 10 days but by this morning nothing had appeared so I rang in again. Initial response from the first agent was that it had been paid, but on checking closer it turned out it was paid in August 2024 ... that was last years payment! So there is no refund being processed at all. After being passed back and forth between PAYE and SA agents twice I finally got to someone who actually asked WHY I thought I was due a refund and then he realised that figures were missing from the original tax return! I would need to add them in to correct MY mistake, but at least he did come up with a different support number if I ran into difficulties doing it. Trying to navigate through to the right page was fun, but on the first attempt I found where the private pension and tax taken should have been included, on the page after the state pension stuff had been added automatically. The problem was that it only resulted in a £300 refund, which was where I thought it would be if just the tax code was wrong, so back in and I found a likely box into which to copy the business loss that it had already calculated. Bingo, the new return shows a full refund and I've got a printout of it, but as yet the copy on-line has not been updated?

So presumably now the clock starts again on the 12 weeks wait for it to be processed ... will I be flush in time for Christmas is the question.

It only took 80 minutes on the phone today to find it was all my own fault, along with a 30 minute call earlier. That each call has several minutes of 'advertising' of services just adds to the irritating nature of the whole process and for reference when the automation says 'you can hang up now' because it's sent you a link to useless online services - DON'T - just hang on and it will give in and connect you to an real agent. This morning I was expecting a wait, but 8 minutes into the call and I was talking to the first agent. That perhaps is how it should work, but then I was ringing early. It is just a pity that the agents can't actually answer the questions any more than the on-line agent!