P60/HMRC, try hard if they cant find your tax records

[leobr]

Hi there,

I will be applying for my ILR on July, 29th and I have been gathering the documentation for my application since a few weeks ago.

My case is as follows:

- Came to the UK in 05/August/2006, WP
- Changed employment twice under the same WP; always had a letter of authorization from HO prior to start working on my jobs;
- Changed employment a third time (current job), now using Tier 2
- All leave to remain granted over the period never expired;
- It took the HO 25d to issue the letter for the first employment change and 27d for the second, but they were issued through my WP, period which I was technically unemployed (which I dont think it will be a big deal, based on what I have read in this forum)
- For the WP to Tier 2 change, no gaps
- 225 days off the UK in 5 years, 100 days on business trip. I have no intention of taking a letter from employers confirming this business trip since it seems it is not really needed;


Dont think there will be any problem with my application based on what I've read in this forum.

All my documentation is fine now - P60s, WP, letter of authorizations, bank statements, but there was a little a little problem with my P60 2006-07 which thanks God, I have now sorted i believe is worth mentioning here.

Well, I have lost my P60 06/07 - tough! I contacted my employer (which applied for my WP) before I quit the company in 2008 and they refused to give me a duplicate or a letter confirming my employment for the 2006/2007 period. Instead, they gave me a black and white copy of my P60 2006/2007 - lucky me I got this one! This company is notoriously nasty at ex-employees, so there is no way I can ask help from them to prove I was employed on 2006/2007.

As probably everybody who follows this list knows, some case workers do not accept copies of documents and while sometimes they dont even bother looking at this, I thought it was too risk applying with this P60 copy, since I have changed jobs 3 times ... and just to confirm, I called them twice and they'll say exactly this - it is up for the case worker to decide.......

I didnt leave my application to chance, so I called HMRC to get a statement of earnings. At the first time, they were very friendly and issued me a statement of earnings which was delivered unbelievably within a week. The problem with this statement of earnings was for my completely despair, it didnt mention anything of 2006-2007.

Called them up again. The tax officer at this time was not particular friendly or helpful and just said she could not track my 2006-2007 tax year based on my N.I. and refused to help my any further.

Called them again, another tax officer - this one friendly and helpful. Had to tell him the whole story about the my hostile employer, explain how important the document is for the ILR application...blablabla, 45 minutes on the phone to get him to help me.

He tried two things to track down my tax record:

1)- the first two letters of my current NI number, following by six digit date of birth (apparently it one of the ways HMRC/companies keep provisional N.I accounts while a employer does provide the definitive N.I number) which turned out in nothing. We tried this because for the first months of my employment, I had NI number TR000000, which means you got a provisional account.

2)- Finally, he found the way: for each P60 a company issues, they also need to provide HMRC a P16 with the same data. The tax office asked me the figures i paid in taxes for 06/07 from P60 copy, name of my first company and, kbummm! he found the record on the system that keeps track on the P16s - blargh!

So, they issued me a letter confirming my 06/07 earnings with my first company, NI number, etc - this one was delivered in 3 weeks, which match the figures of my P60 copy...I have never heard of anybody so happy with a letter delivered from HMRC before, lol - it seems that it is all set for a happy ending on July, 29th.

BTW, on my P60 06/07 copy, my N.I. is the one I've been using since them - no dodgy 000000 etc... so this was a genuine mistake, from HMRC or my first employer but I am really glad it is all sorted.

[Sushil-ACCA]

thanks for detailed expanation and insight WORKING of HMRC