Incompetent Revenue Employees

jungleman

I have been trying to claim back my emergency tax for ages now, without success. Every time I ring a tax office or call into a tax office, I am given a completely different set of instructions on what to do and how to go about doing it. Claiming back emergency tax is not a complicated process; I am well aware that I need a P45 from my previous employer and a P60 from my current employer to claim back my tax for 2011. Why then, are the morons in a certain Dublin tax office trying to make it as hard as possible for me to claim back my money??

I am registered with PAYE Anytime, which has in the past made my tax refunds a breeze. For some reason however, the employees in this tax office are now saying (after telling me to do this, that, whatever) that I have to call into them with my P60 because they say that the amount of tax I am claiming is "not adding up" and they think I am lying about how much tax I have paid.... Even though I am sat here looking at my P60 and I can see quite clearly how much tax I have paid and how much I am owed!!!

After so many times they have made me jump through hoops, with false information, false promises about when I would see my money and false accusations that I am trying to claim back more than I am owed, I have come to this conclusion:

The bottom line is that a lot of these employees actually don't know what they are doing, and I fnd it hilarious that if I ring a tax office from Meath, I am given a completely different set of instructions than if I ring a tax office in Dublin. There is no consistency whatsoever, and claiming back tax is a torturous and nightmarish task. If I was even half as bad at my job as the employees in this Dublin tax office are at theirs, I would have been fired a long long time ago. Has anyone else experienced anything like this??

Hungrycol

Do it by post. You shouldn't need a P45 from your previous employer if you have a P60 from your current employer for 2011. Provided of course you gave your current employer your P45 when you started. Fill in a Form 12 attaching your P60 and post it to your Revenue District (contact locator Revenue.ie home page). They will send you out a balancing statement outlining anything over or underpaid.

relax carry on

jungleman wrote: »

I have been trying to claim back my emergency tax for ages now, without success. Every time I ring a tax office or call into a tax office, I am given a completely different set of instructions on what to do and how to go about doing it. Claiming back emergency tax is not a complicated process; I am well aware that I need a P45 from my previous employer and a P60 from my current employer to claim back my tax for 2011. Why then, are the morons in a certain Dublin tax office trying to make it as hard as possible for me to claim back my money??

I am registered with PAYE Anytime, which has in the past made my tax refunds a breeze. For some reason however, the employees in this tax office are now saying (after telling me to do this, that, whatever) that I have to call into them with my P60 because they say that the amount of tax I am claiming is "not adding up" and they think I am lying about how much tax I have paid.... Even though I am sat here looking at my P60 and I can see quite clearly how much tax I have paid and how much I am owed!!!

After so many times they have made me jump through hoops, with false information, false promises about when I would see my money and false accusations that I am trying to claim back more than I am owed, I have come to this conclusion:

The bottom line is that a lot of these employees actually don't know what they are doing, and I fnd it hilarious that if I ring a tax office from Meath, I am given a completely different set of instructions than if I ring a tax office in Dublin. There is no consistency whatsoever, and claiming back tax is a torturous and nightmarish task. If I was even half as bad at my job as the employees in this Dublin tax office are at theirs, I would have been fired a long long time ago. Has anyone else experienced anything like this??

Sometimes Revenue do not have the full information to process claims. Sometimes employers do not file P45s or P35s (P60s) or they file incorrect information. I cannot speak for the different information you have received but unless your former employer and your present employer have filed the necessary documents with Revenue, they will need to see your P45 if you still have it and your P60.

You say that you are registered with PAYE Anytime; when you login and look at your Pay and Tax details for 2011, are both of your jobs showing up with the same Pay and Tax as are on your P45 and P60?

Also you did not say when started to look for the emergency tax back. If it was in 2011, how you would get it back would have been different to how you would get it back if you applied for it in 2012.

relax carry on

Hungrycol wrote: »

Do it by post. You shouldn't need a P45 from your previous employer if you have a P60 from your current employer for 2011. Provided of course you gave your current employer your P45 when you started. Fill in a Form 12 attaching your P60 and post it to your Revenue District (contact locator Revenue.ie home page). They will send you out a balancing statement outlining anything over or underpaid.

A form 12 tax return is not required in this case. It is a waste of paper to submit one unless you are requested to do so or you are declaring an additional income. All it does is just increase paperwork and the time taken to process the item.

djk1000

I've always found Revenue to be much better to deal with than many other Government bodies. Seems like either your last employer or your current employer (more likely your last one) has made an error somewhere with what they have submitted and this is causing problems.

Mr. Incognito

My experiences of dealing with revenue are thus

Certain employess in certain districts are good, some are useless, it varies by district. They are splintered, do not talk to each other and are seperate fiefdoms

You observation that a lot of them don't know what they are doing is sadly true. As far as I am aware no revenue civil servants take any tax knowledge exams until inspector level. Someone may tell me different.

I have also found clerical officers knowledge on phones varies greatly depending if they are dealing with the same queries- VAT for instance but otherwise is rubbish.

It is not their fault, they are dealing with complicated tax legislation that changes every year and they are working in departments where there is no incentive to be knowledgable, no monetary award to read up on the nuances of tax legislation.

If you have a query- as said above- put it in writing, they can look it up and get back to you, sometimes they get it wrong, in fact this is hard coded into their hand book in that if one district gives a particular treatment another district must follow that treatment.

Now- as for emergency tax refunds - it varies by district but all cheques come from Ennis. Put it in writing, include your own p60, keep a copy and send it registered post. If it is for 2011 don't bother- just request a P21 balancing statment and the refund will trigger automatically as your credits will be correct applied on an annual basis. If it is 2012 pop it in the post with a cover letter

relax carry on

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

My experiences of dealing with revenue are thus

Certain employess in certain districts are good, some are useless, it varies by district. They are splintered, do not talk to each other and are seperate fiefdoms

You observation that a lot of them don't know what they are doing is sadly true. As far as I am aware no revenue civil servants take any tax knowledge exams until inspector level. Someone may tell me different.

I have also found clerical officers knowledge on phones varies greatly depending if they are dealing with the same queries- VAT for instance but otherwise is rubbish.

It is not their fault, they are dealing with complicated tax legislation that changes every year and they are working in departments where there is no incentive to be knowledgable, no monetary award to read up on the nuances of tax legislation.

If you have a query- as said above- put it in writing, they can look it up and get back to you, sometimes they get it wrong, in fact this is hard coded into their hand book in that if one district gives a particular treatment another district must follow that treatment.

Now- as for emergency tax refunds - it varies by district but all cheques come from Ennis. Put it in writing, include your own p60, keep a copy and send it registered post. If it is for 2011 don't bother- just request a P21 balancing statment and the refund will trigger automatically as your credits will be correct applied on an annual basis. If it is 2012 pop it in the post with a cover letter

Your experience of Revenue reads like its been built up over quite a bit if time. Some of it is no longer as true as it was in the past.

Let's start with the general some good staff/some bad staff. That is true of every single workplace, private or public. What Revenue and a lot of the civil service is dealing with, is the legacy issues of promoting people based on seniority not merit, meaning a lot of the problems you list above relate to these managers promoted beyond their ability in the bad old days. Thankfully, promotion on seniority no longer exists and better managers have been coming on stream over the last few years to bring Revenue forward. Better managers mean its less likely that underperforming staff will be able to continue as they have in the past. So the problems of fragmentation and poor communications are being addressed.

Revenue has its own internal training branch which organises modular based training targeting specific areas like customer service or taxheads like VAT. For example, a PAYE staff member is not going to be put on a public desk without completing six individual customer service/taxation modules, which the staff member is examined on. These modules are backed up by targeted workloads to reinforce the modular learning. If the staff member requires additional modules to complement and extend their range, then their requests are accommodated subject to budget and staff constraints.

Customer services areas are expected to deliver customer service via the phone or in person, not discuss the finer points of the Taxes Consolidation Act. If the staff member is unsure of the answer or the query is going to take too long to answer via the phone or even in person, they should take details of the query, do some research and get back to you or pass it to a higher grade. As you rightly point out there are some complicated areas in taxation and it is constantly changing; so personally I would get any complicated queries answered in an email so there can be no confusion by either side.
The taxation degree courses run in association with universities are targeted at staff that require them as, belive it or not they cost money to provide and not every clerical officer requires them. Outside of all of that, staff have recourse to technical taxes areas to pass on queries that no one else seems to have an answer for.

All of the above aside, you will still get some absolute oxygen theives sometimes but its getting harder for them to slip through the net. And just to keep things balanced, some of the queries sent in by both members of the public and accountants can so poorly constructed, that its hard to even figure out what they are on about, thereby slowing down the process of getting to an answer.

jungleman

I do realise that taxation can be a mine field and there are some challenging aspects to their jobs, but I still find it outrageous how a simple procedure such as a tax refund has turned into an absolute fiasco. I've gotten my tax back via PAYE Anytime before without a problem; my employer details were registered correctly. Again for 2011, my employer details were registered correctly, as were my employee number, etc... For some reason, the O'Connell St tax office just have staff members who do not understand some aspects of the current tax system, and it has made my life a pain since the beginning of January.

First of all, I was told that I needed a P45 from my previous employer.

Then I was told that I would need a P60 from my employer, as I expected.

THEN it began to get complicated....

After submitting my tax refund online, I noticed that my refund still hadn't been deposited from my bank account. This was because someone from O Connell St tax office thinks that I have lied about how much tax I am owed, and have not allowed my money to be deposited into my account.

I only discovered this after ringing them myself after weeks of waiting; no-one had the cop on to ring me and ask for a copy of my P60, something anyone with a brain cell would do.

I do think that major reforms are needed in the way tax is dealt with in this country, cases like this are just embarrassing and ridiculous!

relax carry on

jungleman wrote: »

I do realise that taxation can be a mine field and there are some challenging aspects to their jobs, but I still find it outrageous how a simple procedure such as a tax refund has turned into an absolute fiasco. I've gotten my tax back via PAYE Anytime before without a problem; my employer details were registered correctly. Again for 2011, my employer details were registered correctly, as were my employee number, etc... For some reason, the O'Connell St tax office just have staff members who do not understand some aspects of the current tax system, and it has made my life a pain since the beginning of January.

First of all, I was told that I needed a P45 from my previous employer.

Then I was told that I would need a P60 from my employer, as I expected.

THEN it began to get complicated....

After submitting my tax refund online, I noticed that my refund still hadn't been deposited from my bank account. This was because someone from O Connell St tax office thinks that I have lied about how much tax I am owed, and have not allowed my money to be deposited into my account.

I only discovered this after ringing them myself after weeks of waiting; no-one had the cop on to ring me and ask for a copy of my P60, something anyone with a brain cell would do.

I do think that major reforms are needed in the way tax is dealt with in this country, cases like this are just embarrassing and ridiculous!

Ah I think I see what happened. The online system has safeguards built into it which hold up some refunds. Some are random and some are targeted. This is to avoid fraudulent/incorrect claims. As January is one of the busiest periods of the year there are quite a few of these Workitems which have to be double checked to release the refund. This can entail someone just looking at the claim and releasing the refund. It can also take the form of physical proof like the P60 and/or the P45 being required. Some of these workitems are very new and not all staff deal with them.
They are a safety check to ensure the online service is not being subjected to fraudulent/incorrect claims. As more and more people are using it, the safeguards are constantly updated as some people do try to scam Revenue.
I agree that your situation could have been handled better. What I would do is provide what ever is required to get your refund back and then address a complaint to the HEO of the area you were dealt with, detailing how your claim was handled.

Hungrycol

relax carry on wrote: »

A form 12 tax return is not required in this case. It is a waste of paper to submit one unless you are requested to do so or you are declaring an additional income. All it does is just increase paperwork and the time taken to process the item.

Aye, that indeed be true, my bad.