Experts advise against rushing to pay your back tax
The first 45,000 letters from HM Revenue and Customs will be dropping through the letterboxes of many in the UK today with 30,000 likely to receive a rebate from the government and 15,000 likely to receive a bill for extra tax. In total the government is chasing around £3.8 billion in underpaid tax which was purely and simply a result of a computer error within Whitehall. However, experts are advising not to rush to pay your overdue taxes.
There is great debate as to whether HM Revenue and Customs regulations and a little-known loophole regarding "out of the blue" demands could effectively see a large chunk of this money written off. The regulation in question is the A19 Extra-Statutory Concession although there is also an argument that as neither the employers nor the employees in question have done anything wrong, the authorities may struggle to force payment from the potential 5.7 million individuals affected.
Quite how this situation will pan out in the short term remains to be seen but this could not have come at a worse time for the UK government and the UK population with the economy set for a further downturn. Can David Cameron, through no fault of his own, afford to upset the UK voting public?
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