HMRC has issued a warning about tax refunds (Image: Getty)
HMRC has issued a warning about collecting tax refunds after a query from a customer.
The taxpayer contacted the group over social media to ask on March 10: “I received a message from today stating that I overpaid tax last year.
“And I was told that the overpaid tax would be sent to me as a cheque within 14 days. However, I was away from England and I want the payment to be made to my bank account.”
However, responded to explain that the funds could not be paid directly into their account. The group said: “Unfortunately once a cheque has been issued, a bank transfer isn’t possible. You’d need to contact the helpline [and] request a replacement cheque is sent to you.”
The tax authority included a link to an about how to contact the group if you have an income tax query.
You can contact the department using the online chat tool or call over the phone. The helpline can assist with queries such as tax overpayments or underpayments.
There are several reasons you may be owed a tax refund, also known as a tax rebate. This could be because you paid too much tax on:
- Your wages from a job
- Job expenses
- Pension payments
- A self assessment tax return
- A redundancy payment
- Your UK income if you live overseas
- Interest from savings or from payment protection insurance (PPI)
- Income from a life or pension annuity
- Foreign income
- UK income you earned before leaving the UK.
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If you think you are owed some cash from , you can check this and find out how to claim the refund using this tool .
One way to claim a tax refund is using your personal tax account, which can be set up .
This provides access to a lot of your tax information, such as your income tax estimate for the current year, your tax code and your entitlement.
The tool can also show you if you would benefit from paying voluntary National Insurance contributions and if you can pay online.
Now is a good time to check, as you can currently top up over an extended period, as far back as the 2006/2007 tax year. Usually you can only do so up to six years ago.
But you can only top up over this extended period until the end of the current financial year, which ends in April, meaning you have less than a month to take advantage of this offer.