Complaint againist Revenue

Buttercake

I have a company, up to date with Revenue except our last vat3 returns about €2,300, filed without payment in January.

Received a letter on friday asking to make payment within 7-days, so I transferred €1k on friday.

Received a letter today from the City Sheriff asking for payment immediately + fees of €157 or equipment will be seized from the office. I know these letters are made out to be more scary than they are but I was genuinely shocked.

Thought it was a pi$$take or scam, the sheriffs email address was an eircom.net email address on the letter but after checking with the Revenue, its all true.

Of course I paid the balance by transfer this morning but in 7 years, I've never had that before.. and throughout the years I have had vat owned for months on end, never even got a letter.

I told them that I'm not paying the sheriff fees and I said that I will be making a formal complaint through the ombudsman as i found this very upsetting, so on.

Has anyone any experience of lodging a complaint against revenue agents? does it go anywhere? does anything actually happen?

jimmii

Thats crazy! I think I must have just missed that last month I had an issue with my card where my payment didn't go through and only made the actual payments last week and got the receipt yesterday!

To be fair the cut off dates are very clear you are probably quite lucky to have never received a letter before and you kind of have to expect them to charge extra for late payments just to encourage people to pay on time. It does sound like the letter may have been a bit heavy handed though. You could question the fee I thought they charged a daily interest rate on late payments but I doubt you will be able to get away with having to pay nothing extra though.

Contact the Revenue and see what can be done. If you know you are going to miss a payment always better to contact them before they contact you.

Peterdalkey

In my opinion you would be stone mad to go down that road, never get involved in a spat that you cant win!! Had you phoned your VAT person in Revenue at the time the payment was due, you might have charmed a bit of leniency time wise. It is too late now, the sheriff want his fees and he will not go hungry and Revenue will not pay him. Learn from this and just pay him asap.

Buttercake

ive paid my bill but i'm not paying a sheriffs €157 when I don't have even have 7-days to make payment from the first letter.

its not €25,000 and it seems a lot of effort to put pressure on someone for a couple of grand.

I'll be lodging a complaint against the agent for doing this, must have been short on his end of month, not taking that s%it and I dont aim to win anything with them.

jimmii

Taking them on over it could end up in it being a lot more costly you might want to tread carefully if that is the route you want to take. Maybe take a couple of days to consider things before you do anything else.

Buttercake

jimmii wrote: »

Taking them on over it could end up in it being a lot more costly you might want to tread carefully if that is the route you want to take. Maybe take a couple of days to consider things before you do anything else.

of course, i'm not on any crusade here - just a complaint against the service, receiving a sheriffs letter and not given the 7-days to pay.

mikom

Buttercake wrote: »

I told them that I'm not paying the sheriff fees and I said that I will be making a formal complaint through the ombudsman as i found this very upsetting, so on.

If he's as good as the garda ombudsman then prepare yourself for a few "random" tax audits over the upcoming years.

Nuttzz

I've had this before, what I did was settled with the revenue in full directly and submitted the return, as there was nothing outstanding the revenue had no choice but to call off the sheriff as there was nothing outstanding. When the sheriff did call I told him there was nothing outstanding, he went to his car, made a call and was never seen again

MidlandsM

yup,. keep the head down ......best in the long run OP.

jcon1913

Nuttzz wrote: »

I've had this before, what I did was settled with the revenue in full directly and submitted the return, as there was nothing outstanding the revenue had no choice but to call off the sheriff as there was nothing outstanding. When the sheriff did call I told him there was nothing outstanding, he went to his car, made a call and was never seen again

This is the best route, and pay on time the next time. This way you will avoid the Sheriffs fees, but you need to learn the lesson - VAT and other taxes are not a source of finance. If you use them like that it will end badly. You need to collect your debts i.e. put the pressure on other people to pay you on time. that way they pay the Sheriff's fees, not you.

By the way there is no ombudsman for Revenue, so there is nobody to complain to except Revenue themselves. They can do what they like ( and frequently do if they take a set against you ).

Buttercake

thanks for comments - spoke with Revenue earlier and said that i had paid 1k on friday and balance today and they said that was fine, the sheriffs fees of €157, thats their problem.

we submit returns on invoice not cash so the return is sent before we get the funds, This has been changed now to cash based.

Problem solved now. They're not untouchable

You can also contact the Office of the Ombudsman if you are unhappy about the way in which we have handled any aspect of your tax affairs. The Ombudsman's staff examine complaints about the administrative actions of Government Departments and Offices, including the Revenue Commissioners

http://www.revenue.ie/en/about/custservice/how-complain-revenue.html

rubberdiddies

Obviously pay on time but that was far too heavy handed.

Revenue owed me €4000 last year due to VAT coming out of the account twice in error. I didn't get the Sherrif onto them during the 4 weeks I was waiting for the refund.

Likewise last year I waited 8 weeks after submitting my income tax returns for a €2000 refund, again I didn't get the sheriff onto them.

My point is there should be a bit of give and take, particularly if you have been paying in full and on time for seven years.

Making threats on people generating revenue, paying tax and providing employment is not very nice. After all we don't live in North Korea

Buttercake

rubberdiddies wrote: »

Obviously pay on time but that was far too heavy handed.

Revenue owed me €4000 last year due to VAT coming out of the account twice in error. I didn't get the Sherrif onto them during the 4 weeks I was waiting for the refund.

Likewise last year I waited 8 weeks after submitting my income tax returns for a €2000 refund, again I didn't get the sheriff onto them.

My point is there should be a bit of give and take, particularly if you have been paying in full and on time for seven years.

Making threats on people generating revenue, paying tax and providing employment is not very nice. After all we don't live in North Korea

exactly, this thing of "you cant say boo to the revenue" is a load of balls

Being in business actually paying tax/vat unlike some competitors who operate cash in hand so they can have a bit of give and take. Swear it was 25,000 or 250,000 that i had owed them.

Peterdalkey

Good to know it is now sorted. I am sure everyone on here can empathise with your anger and frustration. It does seem unfair that they come down like a ton of bricks on the regular guy who is doing his best to stay up to date, while the real rogues ride off into the sunset unmolested.
It also show the value of calling up anyone owed money beyond terms and levelling with them as to one’s predicament and telling them when they will be paid. It happens in business and as long as they stick to the promise, most will get a positive outcome!.

jcon1913

Buttercake wrote: »

exactly, this thing of "you cant say boo to the revenue" is a load of balls

Being in business actually paying tax/vat unlike some competitors who operate cash in hand so they can have a bit of give and take. Swear it was 25,000 or 250,000 that i had owed them.

I hear your pain and I agree. It is a load of balls.

If you owe them money they get heavy-handed. When you are waiting on a refund they take their sweet time, and any excuse to hold up repayment is used.

I wouldn't put much store on complaining to the Ombudsman's Office. You can be sure there is some rule or other Revenue can use against you for late payment of VAT, thereby justifying this behaviour.

You could create a lot of work for yourself and create a world of hassle. As another poster pointed out years of ''random'' audits and so forth.

neris

Just out of curiosity who do you complain to about Revenue? Not had issues with them in years but always feel their very heavy handed in their dealings and very quick to take money and issue threats without talking to the company or person. Surely someday they will screw over the wrong company or wealthy individual who will have no issues taking them to court

Buttercake

neris wrote: »

Just out of curiosity who do you complain to about Revenue? Not had issues with them in years but always feel their very heavy handed in their dealings and very quick to take money and issue threats without talking to the company or person. Surely someday they will screw over the wrong company or wealthy individual who will have no issues taking them to court

i didnt in the end, after advice from my accountant..if it was different circumstances, i would straight away but since i owed them vat, I didnt really have grounds to complain.

When i spoke to the agent initially and said i would be making a compliant, he directed me to their website and this link.

http://www.revenue.ie/en/about/custservice/how-complain-revenue.html

Its a government department, people can complain about the services they provide.

dbran

Hi

The revenue are not that bad in fairness when it comes to arrears. They only tend to charge interest and penalties when it goes to the sheriff. So the returns need to be months late before they get heavy.

In other jurisdictions eg Germany, Holland, Itally they actually fine you very heavily if you are even a day late and they automatically levy interest. They are real sticklers for rules and regulation about this and that and it is really hard to pay them if you are overseas.

dbran

Buttercake

dbran wrote: »

Hi

The revenue are not that bad in fairness when it comes to arrears. They only tend to charge interest and penalties when it goes to the sheriff. So the returns need to be months late before they get heavy.

In other jurisdictions eg Germany, Holland, Itally they actually fine you very heavily if you are even a day late and they automatically levy interest. They are real sticklers for rules and regulation about this and that and it is really hard to pay them if you are overseas.

dbran

The return was for Nov/Dec, filed with no payment.

Got sent a letter on Friday 27th saying to pay in 7-days. Transferred 1k

Got a letter from the sheriff on Monday. Paid the balance, didnt pay sheriffs fees.

BnB

This is almost a carbon copy of what happened to us a few years ago.

We submitted our returns. We included a letter explaining that we would have the money in 3 weeks time as we were waiting on an invoice to be paid (coincidentally from another government department).

The following week we got a knock on the door from the sheriff. I am not libeling anyone when I say this as I won't say what part of the country it was, but he was a thoroughly thoroughly nasty piece of work. Not an upfront in your face thug. But a nasty manipulative little bugger.

In the end we paid off the Revenue - On the exact date that we had said we would from the start - Nothing changed except we then had to write out a separate cheque for nearly €1,000 to the Sheriff. In hindsight I think we were a bit green. We should have paid the revenue as we had promised, but we should have made that other sod work for his money.

Anyway - Finally - The main point of my post....and I couldn't stress this enough.....

DO NOT waste your valuable time and energy getting hot under the collar about it and trying to complain. My business partner did - And he wasted days and days and days of work on it. We complained to our Revenue contact - We moved on to her supervisor - We moved onto her supervisor again - We kept on going up the chain - And we kept getting the same utter utter shoite. Basically - We may have have been unreasonable, but we are most certainly are not going to admit it. They just closed ranks and stuck to the party line. i.e. We haven't broken any law.

We tried ombudsmen...blah blah blah blah.... All that rubbish.... But What did we get..... We lost nights sleep and days and days and days of work with it.... And ZERO satisfaction.

I would very very very strongly advise you. Take it on the chin - And move on. Go home this weekend. Do whatever it is you do to forget about work for a while. Drink a few pints, watch the rugby, play with the kids...whatever you thing is.... And promise yourself, when you start up Monday morning, you will not give this one more second's thought.

Because every ounce of energy and time you put into this is utterly utterly wasted.

neris

BnB wrote: »

Anyway - Finally - The main point of my post....and I couldn't stress this enough.....

DO NOT waste your valuable time and energy getting hot under the collar about it and trying to complain. My business partner did - And he wasted days and days and days of work on it. We complained to our Revenue contact - We moved on to her supervisor - We moved onto her supervisor again - We kept on going up the chain - And we kept getting the same utter utter shoite. Basically - We may have have been unreasonable, but we are most certainly are not going to admit it. They just closed ranks and stuck to the party line. i.e. We haven't broken any law.

We tried ombudsmen...blah blah blah blah.... All that rubbish.... But What did we get..... We lost nights sleep and days and days and days of work with it.... And ZERO satisfaction.

I would very very very strongly advise you. Take it on the chin - And move on. Go home this weekend. Do whatever it is you do to forget about work for a while. Drink a few pints, watch the rugby, play with the kids...whatever you thing is.... And promise yourself, when you start up Monday morning, you will not give this one more second's thought.

Because every ounce of energy and time you put into this is utterly utterly wasted.

the only thing about taking it on the chin from any these government depts is that if no one complains or puts up a fight they just become even more strong armed bullies and they become complacent in the way things are done for businesses or the public. Recent events have shown that govt agencies dont like complaints and like to brush complaints and compaliners away. Enda wants Ireland to be the best little country to business in but at the moment the way I see it is that Ireland is the best little country if your a multi billion dollar u.s company but if your small and irish you should just bend over and take it from the govt and their agencies and after theyve finshed someone else will come along for their turn

howardmarks

Couple of points on this.

November/December vat return filing date and payment is due 19th jan. Its march so its not just due last week.

Vat is a consumer tax. I.e we the consumer pay it. Businesses collect it on behalf of revenue and pay it over.

To say you cant make a complaint about a government body isn't really true. If you have a genuine complaint about being treated unfairly there are steps you can take to have your say heard. In this instance tho you filed a return without payment on a tax your legally obliged to collect for money that was never yours.

One final point is the sherrif are not revenue but an outside agency engaged on revenues behalf to collect outstanding taxes. I am surprised at the speed with which it was passed to the sherrif however its generally after no response is received in respect of taxes due. You should have got some form of letter and a phone call saying payment was on the way would have bought u time.