Tax Refund Overpayment

[btrobin]

Last November my Father in Law passed away, I duly notified all the necessary including his private pension company, who quickly informed me that they had just, the day before his death, paid his monthly pension, in advance, so would require that amount to be reimbursed, which subsequently did.
There was a miniscule amount due on the state pension, and an amount from the inland revenue, all sorted nearly 10 months ago. Today we received a tax demand from the Inland Revenue asking for a payment of £108, which had been overpaid, when they did the refund.
It transpires that the private pension administrators had included the overpayment in the P45 they sent to the inland revenue, and upon which figures the Revenue calculated their refund amount. Now the P60 has arrived from the pension admin, to the Revenue, the figures have been altered to reflect the true figures.
These are the private pension administrators who sent out a life certificate, twice even though they knew he had died, just to give you a perspective of their efficiency.
So 10 months after his death we have a demand for money from the UK inland Revenue, due to a mistake solely down to an inefficient organisation. My question is what should we do, just pay the money, or ask the IR to approach the pension administrators for recompense, or just tell them we don't have the means to pay it, We do not live in the UK, but we both have UK pensions, is there any chance of them attaching the debt to that.

[woofgang]

its the estate who owes the money and not you. Was there any money left in the estate after bills and debts paid and what happened to it?

[MartinMillar]

Firstly is it kosher? Email or letter.

[btrobin]

Yes Kosher letter direct from UK, the state has been distributed to the beneficiaries, no probate, not required and he died in France

[btrobin]

Sorry Typo the estate has been distributed!!

[woofgang]

then whoever did the distibution has to go the the beneficiaries and get the dosh back

[btrobin]

Not a problem, and it is not a great deal of money, it just sticks in my throat that this bunch of morons running the pension plan, give the wrong figures and we have to suffer the consequences.

[jackthehat]

With all due respect, *you* don't.
You may well have to give back a proportion of the monies you received from the estate. You are not being requested to stump up any of your own hard-earned cash just a sum you received from a third party.

[ToraToraTora]

Pay it, end of.

[btrobin]

Having chewed this over a bit, I am of the opinion that, firstly the pension admin team paid a sum just before he died. That sum was a "net" sum, which was subsequently returned, and had the appropriate amount of income tax deducted from it by said pension provider. So where is that tax deduction at this time, it must have been kept by the provider to settle the tax liability, if they have it then they, surely must give it over.

[bednobs]

you surely must be talking of a very small amount? If it's tax on 1 month's pension, that can't be huge?

[btrobin]

As said in the original script £108, not a great amount as I have already conceded, and as normal we will probably end up settling it

[Peter Pedant]

I think you have to pay to be honest
actually it should be in proportion to the disctirbution of assets - and good luck with that hur hur hur
I can already hear screams of ' well I am not paying that!' ( someone else can )

in order to recover from the IR there has to be a tort of negligent assessment of tax
there isnt
I think also a tax judge has said as he sat there in juridical glory : "the tax payer is expected to check what he send onto the tax man"

I was assessed on my brothers turnover as my own income once