So, getting a tax refund yourself is the best option right?

If you really know what you’re doing and can actually get through to HMRC regarding your tax refund, of course you can.

But that assumes you’ve got lots of patience, plenty of time, and know exactly which areas of your tax you need to look at in each of the last 4 tax years. You’ll also need to know which allowances you were entitled to claim, where mistakes may have been made by HMRC or an employer, and most importantly, what questions you’re going to need to ask HMRC.

It also assumes you know enough about the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) rules so when you ask HMRC a question, you know the answers they give you are actually right, which may not always be the case! A survey of HMRC’s customer call centres by The Low Income Tax Reform Group found that HMRC consistently made mistakes – in some more complicated cases up to 80% of the answers they gave were wrong!

If you manage to get a tax refund yourself, you’ll need to know enough about tax to check it’s the right amount. If they pay you too much, you can be certain they’ll want it back in the future, even if you’ve spent it! It’s actually more likely they won’t pay you enough, so you might have missed out on a large refund we could have got back for you. Let’s be clear though, if they don’t send you enough, it’s most likely going to be your fault for not asking the right questions, not HMRC’s.

The other thing you need to be aware of (and this is something you never get told by all those people and websites who say you can do this yourself), is that by speaking directly to HMRC and asking them to open your file to check your tax, they might say you owe them money! They may be right, but the amount you owe could be much less than they’re telling you. Over 50% of the underpayment cases we look at are wrong! Unless you know what you’re doing, you’ll have no option but to pay them the amount they demand. They’ll probably just start taking it from your wages so you’ll have no choice.

Using our service, you’ll avoid these risks because we know exactly what we’re doing (as we should do having done this for over 2.9 million taxpayers in the last 22 years) and we’ll only contact HMRC if we think you’re owed a refund.

Our Average Tax Refund For Clients Is Over £206!

So you want to check if you’ve got a nice tax refund sat waiting for you at HMRC?

Wise choice!

So now, you’ve got a few choices depending on how exactly you want to apply:

1, If you’re still on our website (and haven’t printed this off), you can click on the big green “Apply Now” button at the top of the screen.

You’ll then need to create an account – it takes 10 seconds – and give us some basic information to start the review. We’ll look at your answers and then email or write to you for more information. When you click the “Apply Now” button, you’ll also get the option to use a printable form which you fill in on screen and then print and post to us.

2, You can simply call our lovely dedicated customer care team on 0161 968 7345 and they will take your application over the telephone.

3, You can fill in the form your employer, trade union or professional body have given you and send it to the FREEPOST address shown on the form. (In case it’s not obvious, it’s The Tax Refund Company, FREEPOST RTHS-EKKC-BEAU, Seaton House, Stockport, SK2 6LR) 

If you don’t have a claim form you can either open a pdf version and print it off by clicking here or if you’ve not got a printer, just send us a stamped and self-addressed envelope and we’ll send you one. Send your envelope to Nicola Hoyle, The Tax Refund Company, Seaton House, St Thomas’s Place, Stockport SK2 6LR. Any size envelope will be just fine, but please don’t forget to put your name and address on it and a 1st or 2nd class stamp.

Our Average Tax Refund For Clients Is Over £206!

We’ve been ‘doing’ tax refunds for quite a long time.

8,695 days at the time of writing this…

…or 208,680 hours

…or 751,248,000 seconds!!

The service actually became available on the 19th August 1993. That’s a long time!

Although in those days the service was called Professional Taxation Services, until it seemed everyone thought they needed to be a doctor, solicitor, architect or something “professional” sounding to use the service.

The business has changed hands since then and significant investment through our new owners is enabling us to implement a whole raft of new initiatives to help improve the service we offer you. We’re quicker, slicker and a whole lot bigger!

So let’s say you’ve got your tax refund – A nice healthy amount which HMRC have been stashing away from you – What happens next?…

If they follow your instructions, HMRC will send us your cheque. We’ll take our fee and send the remaining bit to you.

And then your cheque should pop through your letter box within 28 days of the date shown on the letter you’ve got about your tax refund from HMRC.

As a famous meerkat once said… Simples.

28 days is just a guide because local or national postal strikes, changes in the way HMRC send out assessments and refunds or other unknown forces might slow things up.

It also takes up to 28 days because we often don’t get the cheque for 7-10 days after they send you a letter, even though your letter may say they’ve sent it.

Don’t worry, we aren’t going to run off into the night with it!

Once we’ve got your refund, we’ll check it’s correct and hold on to it for a minimum 7 days to make sure HMRC doesn’t ask for some of it back!

We do get cheques for more than the amount due and HMRC will ALWAYS want it back, so the last thing we want to do is to send you a refund and then have HMRC ask you for some of it back!

Our Average Tax Refund For Clients Is Over £206!

Unlike other firms, we tell the truth about how long your tax refund is going to take to get back to you!

To do a proper in-depth review, it’s probably going to take 6 – 10 weeks if you reply quickly to the letters or emails we send you.

We’ll tell you if we put in a refund claim to HMRC. They normally take 6 – 8 weeks to deal with simple claims, but up to 30 weeks or more for complex claims.

‘2-week tax refunds’

If you’ve read anywhere else that you can get your refund quicker than the 6-8 standard procedures take, we suggest you take it with a pinch of salt! This is how long the process takes, so anyone who says they can do it quicker is either doing it wrong or doing something illegal!

We send in thousands of refund claims every month so we know how long it really takes. It’s better we tell you the truth, rather than try to make out you’re going to get your money quickly. Remember, we only get paid when you get your refund, so we’ll do everything to try and get your money back as soon as possible.

Our Average Tax Refund For Clients Is Over £206!