As I type this, I'm on the phone, waiting to talk to someone at HMRC - entering what feels like my 45th hour on hold listening to the music from "A Place in the Sun", but it's actually more like 20 minutes.
Not having much luck with the lovely revenue recently; last July I paid a bill for £1000 by debit card at the local post office. In September I got a letter telling me that my payment was overdue. Luckily, I had the receipt to hand and checked that the money had left our account (it had). I phoned and explained, received an apology and forgot about it. Until December, when I got a letter from the debt collection agency for HMRC, telling me to pay up or else. After explaining again that I'd paid, they asked me to email them scans of the receipt and our bank statement (actually they asked me to fax them, but after I stopped laughing, I suggested scan/email as a more 21st century option). I did this, heard nothing, then got another bill from the tax office asking again for their money. I explained again and since then, I haven't heard any more. Hopwever, when I logged in to the HMRC self-assessment site to do my return, my balance was - you guessed it - -£1000...
Presumably, once they finally find the money, I'll get an apology and a big bunch of flowers. Or maybe not.

By the way, it's now 35 minutes on hold; just another 30 minutes and they close. Imagine my delight if I get cut off as they turn on the voicemail for the weekend...

Apparently, the other joyful thing about this is that it will very possibly go on my credit rating!

Still, at least it's not French bureacratic incompetence, which really does sap my will to live.

Nearly 40 mins now... I type amazingly slowly with one hand (I'm holding the phone in the other, before you oiks make smutty references)

BORED BORED BORED...

Still there Jim? 50 mins is really taking the pish especially when its a bill already paid!! idiots!!

Well, I did finally talk to a very helpful person, who advised me to lower my payments very significantly. Good news... until they tell me I've broken the law somehow again.

The club had issues with HMRC due to problems predating our involvement.

This is the office that I spoke to eventually which was extremely helpful and stopped all the sillyness while things were being sorted out.

HMRC Debt Management and Banking Department.
Government Buildings
2 Coed Pella Road
Colwyn Bay
LL29 8LP

Phone 0845 308 8757.

Talk to them Jim, they can achieve the seemingly impossible and get local tax offices to listen to what you have to say.

You should try dealing with them for a living

I had an enforcement officer in to see one of my clients. I wasn't very complimentary about their administration, to which she replied 'Most of our departments are full of ******* useless *********'.

Oh and I would recommend anyone paying their tax this month does so electronically. As long as you use your UTR as the reference plus a K on the end, it's rare that payments aren't allocated correctly.

Thanks for all the help and advice. I've submitted my return - now I just need to find out what's happening about the tax I paid last summer. I think an old-fashioned letter might be called for...

I hear that the best approach is to take the head of HMRC to lunch, and tell him what you want to pay, how long you want to pay him, and that it will all be at 0% interest.

Don't expect any apology back. Or even acknowledgement that you have paid your dues. Spent many months of getting threatening letters for an unknown amount of debt for an unknown reason. Would agree on the phone that I owed them nothing, but wouldn't write a letter to that effect.

I think they outsource debt collections to a bunch of psychotic low-grade attack dogs that get pleasure in writing snotty letters, regardless of what is actually owed.