Taxpayers who have been waiting for refunds of their overpaid tax have been hit by delays. People who are due a repayment have been posting on a social media site that they are still waiting weeks after applying for a rebate online.
It is believed that this is a cause of HMRC struggling to cope with the high levels of demand as 600,000 people have used the newly launched site in the past few weeks alone.
Millions of taxpayers pay too much tax every year. This is why the launch of the HMRC online refund service last year has been very in demand and has been very useful for taxpayers who want to claim their refund via their personal tax account. The refund is usually paid into the taxpayers’ bank account within five working days and not supposed to be paid weeks after.
The taxman has admitted that they are aware of the ‘issues’ with the site but they don’t know when will it be resolved. Their only advice to those who are affected is to keep an eye on their bank account and personal tax account for updates.
One taxpayer has complained about how delayed their refund was and if this were the other way around where HMRC is chasing for late payments from the taxpayer, they would have issued them a penalty fee.
An HMRC spokesman has apologised on the matter and has said that only a small number of payments to the taxpayers have been delayed.