South: HMRC hoarding millions in refunds

Buckinghamshire and Thames Valley taxpayers claiming self-assessment repayments from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) could face a wait of several months to receive their money.

Ian Hewitt, business development partner at the Beaconsfield office of Vantis, the accountancy, tax and business recovery and advisory services group, explains:

“There seems to be a particular issue in cases where the automated system does not operate, for example, when it relates to a previous tax year, and must be manually processed by Revenue staff. Cases where manual submission of information is required tend to require a lot of chasing, which can take months.”

Hewitt continued: “We are monitoring the process vigilantly for each of our clients, as some claims are kept back for ‘security checks’, which can mean the repayments take up to a further month to clear. We have also had to carry out significant prompting in order to get the repayment released.”