Trouble obtaining UK Tax records from USA

[corvusheart 163]

18 hours ago, aless02 said:

I agree. I'm American living in the UK (not for long, though!) and I've been reporting foreign income for 10 years. I have to manually calculate using payslips and P-60s and some dodgy math...it's never been an issue, plus currency fluctuations also give some leeway. Income is self-declared. On the 0.004% change you get audited, you can worry about the paper proof from the UK at that point in time.

Well we may get audited now since we will be amending our 2014 tax return reporting his foreign income that we didn't report before. So that's why we want to be accurate.

Edited May 25, 2017 by corvusheart

[corvusheart 163]

 The IRS says failure to report foreign income could result in high penalties and even imprisonment. Does that still apply if you amend your taxes? As I understand the amended return takes the place of the original.

[corvusheart 163]

 SO we called the DWP and they said they don't have any of his payment records on file and to call a different branch of the DWP. So he called the number given and they said they don't have a record of his payment records either and to call HMMC he called there and they just said to call DWP again because they don't have details either. So it just took us in a vicious loop no one has his payment details. How are we supposed to declare income to the IRS???

[Lemonslice 4,768]

2 hours ago, corvusheart said:

 SO we called the DWP and they said they don't have any of his payment records on file and to call a different branch of the DWP. So he called the number given and they said they don't have a record of his payment records either and to call HMMC he called there and they just said to call DWP again because they don't have details either. So it just took us in a vicious loop no one has his payment details. How are we supposed to declare income to the IRS???

Bank transcripts?  

[corvusheart 163]

7 minutes ago, Lemonslice said:

Bank transcripts?  

We tried that too. His account doesn't exist anymore. So they don't have any records.

[corvusheart 163]

 SO we kept going around in circles calling different numbers that we were given from the DWP and HMMC. One branch of the DWP again said they could see he was receiving carers allowance from that time but could not view payments but they said this other person could pull it up for sure and she transferred us. This new person: an older man said they don't keep records of any income that's beyond 14 months and to mail this place to see if they have them. He said they could have them but it's unlikely they will. And we won't hear back for 4-6 weeks. We asked if there was a phone number connected to them that we could call and he said no that we could only contact them by post. The address given to us was this:*Doncaster Benefit Centre
Mail Handling Site A
WOLVERHAMPTON
WV98 1GH

 

We then went into see a tax specialist and explained we may not be able to obtain paperwork at all. She said you will have to guess then but I must warn you the IRS will contact the UK government and get the correct information and if you give the wrong amount you will receive very severe penalties for not giving the correct information. - sigh- now what?

[corvusheart 163]

Has anyone heard about this Doncaster benefits centre in Wolverhampton or dealt with them before? They are listed as a valid address on Google but they don't have a contact number or even information about their business.

[trudi 1,317]

With the income you are declaring it is a 1/million chance of the IRS contacting the U.K. for confirmation of amount, we declared my estimated income which is higher than DWP payments and the IRS hasn't asked for any additional information.

 

I think your tax 'specialist' is being unreasonably demanding.

 

But yes the office in Doncaster exists.

[corvusheart 163]

23 minutes ago, trudi said:

With the income you are declaring it is a 1/million chance of the IRS contacting the U.K. for confirmation of amount, we declared my estimated income which is higher than DWP payments and the IRS hasn't asked for any additional information.

 

I think your tax 'specialist' is being unreasonably demanding.

 

But yes the office in Doncaster exists.

Maybe we will give Doncaster a few weeks to respond and if it gets to be too long just guess. Is it better to just guess high? They also said to attach a letter stating we are giving it a guesstimate.

[trudi 1,317]

3 hours ago, corvusheart said:

Maybe we will give Doncaster a few weeks to respond and if it gets to be too long just guess. Is it better to just guess high? They also said to attach a letter stating we are giving it a guesstimate.

Honestly you are overthinking this whole thing, the IRS knows the U.K. financial year is different to here and the difficulties in calculating an exact amount, just tell them as best you can, there is no need to guess high or low just be honest.

Your husband should know how much he got each month, carers allowance is a fixed sum and only changes with the inflation increase each April.

[corvusheart 163]

 A week and a half ago we sent out our letter to the Doncaster Mail Centre we are told we will hear back via mail in 4 - 6 weeks. Hopefully they send back tax records like we requested. If we hear nothing back by mid July we will just go in and see the tax professional and guess at his income when we amend the taxes. When we mail in the amended taxes with whatever payment is due will we hear anything back from IRS stating that everything is all good with the amended return?

[Wuozopo 4,293]

No. And your transcript will still reflect only the original return.

 

So if you are doing this for some future immigration benefit, understand that you will NOT get a transcript of the amendment.  So while you think USCIS has some superpowers to know you filed wrong, and know exactly what your husband earned (around $3k) when you can't pry it out of the U.K. government, you are sadly wrong.

 

And the person you call tax "professional" is the person who didn't know how to file correctly in the first place. Yet you continue to follow her direction of "must have paper proof of his UK income", which is also incorrect. You continue to ask questions here, but don't believe the answers. It would be better if you dealt with your tax professional for all questions concerning the IRS.

 

Irs.gov:

• A tax return transcript shows most line items from the tax return that the taxpayer filed as well as changes that were made during processing, such as math error corrections. It also includes items from any accompanying forms and schedules filed with the tax return. It doesn’t reflect any amended returns or adjustments to tax made after the taxpayer filed their original return.

Edited June 8, 2017 by Wuozopo

[corvusheart 163]

17 minutes ago, Wuozopo said:

No. And your transcript will still reflect only the original return.

 

So if you are doing this for some future immigration benefit, understand that you will NOT get a transcript of the amendment.  So while you think USCIS has some superpowers to know you filed wrong, and know exactly what your husband earned (around $3k) when you can't pry it out of the U.K. government, you are sadly wrong.

 

And the person you call tax "professional" is the person who didn't know how to file correctly in the first place. Yet you continue to follow her direction of "must have paper proof of his UK income", which is also incorrect. You continue to ask questions here, but don't believe the answers. It would be better if you dealt with your tax professional for all questions concerning the IRS.

 

Irs.gov:

• A tax return transcript shows most line items from the tax return that the taxpayer filed as well as changes that were made during processing, such as math error corrections. It also includes items from any accompanying forms and schedules filed with the tax return. It doesn’t reflect any amended returns or adjustments to tax made after the taxpayer filed their original return.

We are seeing a different tax pro but through same company one who is known to have the most international tax experience.

 

 I thought I had read somewhere that your amended return takes the place of the original. So it still displays the original but includes a notation of changes?

 

We aren't doing this for any benefit other than to avoid potential trouble in the future.

 

We just want a transcript showing an amendment has been made in case we get interview and they ask assuming they still have his DS-160 showing the income he made in UK.

[JessieABC 159]

On 6/8/2017 at 3:58 PM, corvusheart said:

We are seeing a different tax pro but through same company one who is known to have the most international tax experience.

 

 I thought I had read somewhere that your amended return takes the place of the original. So it still displays the original but includes a notation of changes?

 

We aren't doing this for any benefit other than to avoid potential trouble in the future.

 

We just want a transcript showing an amendment has been made in case we get interview and they ask assuming they still have his DS-160 showing the income he made in UK.

if you want to reflect amendments, try Account Transcript or Record of Account: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-return-transcript-types-and-ways-to-order-them

• Tax Account Transcript - shows basic data such as return type, marital status, adjusted gross income, taxable income and all payment types. It also shows changes made after you filed your original return. This transcript is available for the current tax year and up to 10 prior years using Get Transcript Online or Form 4506-T. When using Get Transcript by Mail or phone, you’re limited to the current tax year and returns processed during the prior three years.
• Record of Account Transcript - combines the tax return and tax account transcripts above into one complete transcript. This transcript is available for the current tax year and returns processed during the prior three years using Get Transcript Online or Form 4506-T.

[corvusheart 163]

Well we sent the letter off on May 30th and was told we'd get a letter back in 4 to 6 weeks. It's 6 and a half weeks now and still no letter back. This Doncaster benefits centre doesn't have a phone number so we can't check. Don't know if we should just get the taxes done and do a declaration without paperwork. I don't want us to do a declaration then a week later get the letter and find out the amount was way off.