Following on from my earlier post about the HMRC being thoroughly useless, I managed to get through to their helpline today.

I was actually amazed that I was speaking to a human sounding human (albeit sounding tediously bored stiff) as opposed to a mouthbreathing jobsworth and had the matter sorted out in about 20 seconds.

It would seem that the HMRCs new computer doesn’t talk to half of its other systems and only picked up the fact that tax was owed at some stage whilst completely ignoring the fact that it had been paid later.

I would imagine working there is akin to being in the trenches at the Somme right now!

More importantly, how many people will not query their coding notices and be overcharged for tax they have already paid? Perhaps its all a nice wheeze to raise a few more pounds for Gordon to hose around in the manner of a Satyr on Viagra.