What Katie Morley says…

HMRC is notorious for poor customer service, and I’ve seen some really shocking cases over the years. Back in 2022, a single mother wrote to me for help in dealing with the taxman, who was suddenly trying to claim she owed HMRC more than £4,700 as it had ‘overpaid’ her for Government-funded childcare she was entitled to. She was told she would have to return this money in the form of reduced payments.

HMRC tried to claim her children had not been in nursery and wraparound care for the period in question, which receipts proved was untrue. Already struggling to make ends meet on one wage, the repayments would have meant financial ruin for the woman, yet HMRC didn’t want to know.

It was only once I stepped in that the shocking truth emerged: this mother wasn’t the one that owed money. It was HMRC. It admitted that it had underpaid her by £1,300 in a previous year as a result of yet another error by itself.

The end result was a lump sum of £1,500 (including £200 compensation) for the woman, which she’d never have got on her own. HMRC apologised in the end but the fact that this situation arose in the first place was utterly scandalous.

This woman had been holding up well since kicking out her abusive, manipulative partner when her youngest daughter was just seven months old, meaning she became a solo parent to two girls under three. The way HMRC pulled the shutters down when it was the one in the wrong was simply appalling – especially in the light of the cost of living crisis. Errors such as this may seem like peanuts to tax officers, but for families like hers they could mean the difference between heating their homes and freezing.

Happily for the lady in this story, the refund meant she could once again afford her bills. In fact, she told me she no longer had an excuse for her elder daughter not to learn the trumpet, which was wonderful to hear.