stupid tax question (UK)

xpost: the one time i had tax hassle (more than a decade ago, just after i graduated - part-time employer's fuck-up, it turned out, but deeply pissy for a skint 21-year-old) i went along to my local tax office in edinburgh and they rocked - astonishingly helpful about everything.

Q. My employee has lost (not received) the P45 can I issue a duplicate?
A. You must not issue a duplicate P45 under any circumstances.

Why the fuck not? I've either lost mine or they never sent me one or it got lost in the post and I'm stuck on some stupid tax code so I'm out £1000+.

Just spent ages on hold to HMRC only to fail the security questions because I got a digit wrong on my previous address postcode from 7 years ago and (this is the weird bit) because I don't know who I currently work for (I tried the parent company, the actual company and the intermediate parent company and they were all wrong - the parent company is what appears on my bank statement and was what I said first). No idea how I'm supposed to get this fixed.

you should probably write a letter to them if you can find an appropriate address. keep copies of everything, ask for a timely reply. i notice they've recently shut down the face to face access in our town, i'm assuming this is a national policy to avoid dealing with the results of whatever cuts in service they're undergoing. if you're not happy with your written response or you don't get one, your MP's surgery is probably your next move.

dunno what their online communications are like. alternatively just keep on holding on the phone system depending on yr patience.

I might be OK as my previous employers luckily don't know the rules and sent me a scan of my P45 anyway. Fingers crossed.

hullo UK ilx, i am currently invoicing for a small number of US dollars for a freelance writing job from the UK

i was told i need to fill in a W-9 but this cant be right as i am not a US citizen -- the likely equivalent for non-US citizens seems to be a W-8BEN

naturally the guidance for filling in this (quite short!) form is nightmarishly long and baffling -- does anyone (a) have practical experience of this process or (b) have an up-to-date link which will talk me through it sensibly

QUESTION IN THE MEANTIME: am i correct in believing that line 6 in the W-8BEN (which requests "foreign tax identifying number"), i just put my UK Tax reference number (as supplied by HMRC)?

This bites me every year. Deadline for filling in your self assessment return: Jan 31. Deadline for paying tax: Jan 31. What usually happens is I fill in the self assessment with about one day to spare, I get an email saying "Hi! Your tax return will take about a week to process". Then I forget about it, then two weeks later I get another emailing saying "Oi! You haven't paid your tax". This hardly seems fair.

Apologies if you already know this, but in case not and it's helpful... You can pay immediately after submitting without waiting for it to process. The calculation of what you owe (if anything) is part of the submission, so pay it straightaway after you submit (assuming you have funds available). The last few years there's even a link to be connected straight to your bank to make the payment somewhat automatically. The 'processing' only seems to refer to the wait for it all to appear on your tax account, which usually takes a few days, I don't think there's any actual reviewing/processing/verifying of what you've submitted per se, that happens as you actually fill in the forms and submit.

Do they give you any fine for the late payment?

I also am a last moment filer every year.

Good to know, ta - if I remember next year. No fine - well there seemed to be a £3 difference between what they said in the message and what i actually paid but that's probably processing fees. I'm still slightly surprised you have to pay it all at once, I suppose sensible people budget for this throughout the year. I wouldn't have to go through this at all if we didn't receive child benefit so it's never on my mind until it has to be.

Excellent that there's been no real penalty.

I believe that self assessment is shifting to be a quarterly thing in the next few years (what they call 'Making Tax Digital'), so there won't be such a big gap between the time period one is doing a return for and when one actually does the return and pays the resulting tax, which is bad in some ways, but good in others.

Maybe we should try to remember to resurrect this thread over the summer/autumn and nudge us both to start looking at our next returns a bit earlier.