So, what tempted me back into this blog, well as it say, 2 years later.
Anything happening dudes??
Well some good news.
I got my tax back!!!!
So It Began:
First, about two years ago, just after the last entry, I got a "You did not disclose income and we are taxing you for it plus interest etc."
Now, I like paying tax, not actually true but I like what tax buys, roads, hospitals, police, health and so on. To my knowledge I had and have been totally honest in declaring my income(s) and was totally surprised by this.
For the year in question, I had some poor records. We had changed tax advisor/firm just after that year, (They were a little chaotic and we did not trust them to be reliable). We “had” to use them for the appeal as they were the firm we used to make that disputed declaration.
For us, the good news was they seem to have improved and the person we dealt with was a world away from the person who held that role previously.
So, I got all my records, spend many a happy hour trawling through the mess and finally sent off my information. The tax office came back and told me I had still not declared the income. They then told me what they thought I had missed and said, Ta-Dah!
We finally got to the bottom of this and after 2 more attempts at sending off proof that we had in fact paid the “missing” tax all be it a year later they finally said, Pay Now + interest or we will face fines as well. We PAID!
Next:
Now we had to get the money back plus interest as we had now paid the tax twice.
I had to involve the HMRC as they knew what income I had; the Spanish Tax office told me that they were the source of the “missing/delayed” tax declaration.
Turns out, they were not, they knew nothing about it, we now think that a bank in Eire (one of our savings accounts “Post Office” was managed by them), must have fed back the figures and dates. (If not them, we have no idea)
What had I done wrong?
Well, with the help of our old financial firm and our bank, we discovered that in Spain, you can declare income from savings when you withdraw the funds even if you move (reinvest) the money + interest from one (qualifying) account to another.
We had saved in a UK account, when it ended we reinvested all of it and did not declare ithe interest. We then closed the account a year later and declared all the income from both. We thought this was OK, we were wrong, said the Spanish Tax Office.
This “Reinvesting” does work in Spain if you follow all the rules, it don’t work on non-Spanish, non-qualifying accounts.
When our Post Office account ended they offered the chance to reinvest, we did. From the Spanish Tax point it was seen as we had access to the monies (between closing and opening) and it was not in Spain, so the income should have been declared at that time and, of course, when we closed the second account.
Did we Win?
Well 18 months later and for a small fee, Yes We Did.
We got the tax, we had paid twice, back. They paid back interest on the monies they had during this time and we were up to date and now squeaky clean, I hope.
Result:
OK, out of pocket as we had to pay our financial guy something to recover the tax, it was stressful, I had some lovely chats with HMRC, and they were in the end very helpful. It took me three attempts, via emails etc.’ to understand what questions to ask and therefore get the right answers to my questions. HMRC always answered my question.
After several to and fro’s it finally took an hours phone call to them before we got to understanding what their replies meant so I coukld finally ask “The Right Question”.
It was only 600 euros, cost 180 to get it back (cheap for the amount of time he had to put in, 74 emails and numerous phone calls…), it also cost me a lot of stress.
Tax is hard enough but in a foreign language with rules that you think understood and, at one point, poor advice. Even my Tax people thought I had “Reinvested”.
OK, anything else happening?
Nothing I can see, well we have been stuck indoors for a while and the news is so depressing.
I Got My Tax Back, happy Bunny for now.