Refusal - need help please

[LadySSSS]

I received settlement refusal today and here is the decision:

You have submitted a letter from your Sponsor's claimed employer and wage slips as evidence of his work. The wage slips are not actual wage slips, do not contain a national insurance number and are simply details written on Company Headed Paper. Your sponsor states that he was self employed prior to his current employment which commenced in May 2011. No evidence has been provided of his tax code or any previous tax or national insurance contributions and the current "wage slips" are not in themselves satisfactory evidence. Furthermore, i do not consider it credible that the exact same payment and deductions are made every week as the PAYE scheme operates in such a way that there are generally variations. Having checked the Companies House website, i note that there is no record of either ***** or ****** having been registered as a Company.
This means that i am not satisfied that you can be supported without using public funds (Paragraph 218 (v)of HC 395 as amended).
I have also taken account of article 8 of the Human Rights Act. I consider that refusing this application is justified and proportionate in the exercise of the immigration control. I do not believe that refusing this application will interfere with afamily life, for the purposes of article 8 (1), as you can continue to enjoy that in .

No need to say i am very upset about this, and i really did not expect it...
I spoke to my husband's emp0loyer and he told me that nothing on his paper work he given us said they are a limited company, he is a sole trader business. Sole trader doesnt need to be registered as a "company" to register as a limited company the bussiness has to be earning over a certain amount... I did not know that Also wage slips are original documents which my husband receive each month, and i had no idea they are not alright...

Can somebody please be so kind to tell me what exact documents i should give now to make sure i satisfied their needs

Would it help to get letter from his employer where he explains all this or should i explain it?

Thank you very much in advance.

[Casa]

It appears that your husband's employer is confusing compulsory registration for VAT, when the turnover is over £73,000 for the previous year's trading. Anyone can register a Limited Company (unless they are legally barred from being a director).
The pay slips should show the employee's NIC registration number and tax code. The ECO has probably taken the view that anyone could print off letterheads. Is your husband confident that the employer is complying with his legal obligations with HMRC?
If your husband was previously self-employed as stated in your application why was he unable to show evidence of self-assessment tax returns and National Insurance payments for this?

[LadySSSS]

So basically we can provide same wage slips but with added employee's NIC registration number and tax code, and that should be alright?

If your husband was previously self-employed as stated in your application why was he unable to show evidence of self-assessment tax returns and National Insurance payments for this?

This was our mistake, we didnt think this is needed, and we only mentioned it in supporting letter. We thought current employment is enough.

Is your husband confident that the employer is complying with his legal obligations with HMRC?

He is, i am not. How can i check this?

[Casa]

I doubt whether you can personally. Your husband could check with the Tax Office (HMRC) by giving his National Insurance number.
As the ECO has mentioned in the refusal, tax deductions would normally vary throughout the 'Tax weeks'. If your husband's 'pay slips' don't show a Tax Code, how does he know he's not paying too much tax?

[LadySSSS]

His pay slips actually do show tax code: BR, and amount being deducted is same every week. This is complicated than i thought :/

[Casa]

BR (Basic Rate) means his employer hasn't applied to HMRC for the correct tax code yet (or to give the benefit of the doubt, received the correct code).
At the very least, your husband will be paying more tax than he needs to.
Does his employer have an accountant or book-keeper dealing with the wages?

[Casa]

You may find this helpful from the Direct Gov website. It's evidently not a legal requirement to show the NI number, but without this showing on any paperwork submitted with the application the ECO may have had suspicions about the validity of the employment..and whether your husband is actually employed. Are his wages paid into a bank account and if so, did he submit the bank statements showing the regular deposits?

Your employer might include additional information on your payslip which they are not required to provide, such as:


•National Insurance number

•tax codes

•pay rate (either annual or hourly)

•additional payments like overtime, tips or bonuses, which might be shown separately

[LadySSSS]

His wages were all paid into a bank account, and we submitted bank account statements. I believe ECO started being suspicious when he could't find Company name in a Companies House website, and starting from that he found everything else suspicious.
I just spoke to my husband about the taxes he pays, he said he knows he s paying more taxes than he needs to, that was the agreement with employer, dont wanna get into reasons why.
I am thinking if i get some document from his employer where he shows that he has registered business, and if we get document from HMRC to show that taxes were actually paid for my husband, we should be ok?

[Kitty]

Will your husband's employer assist by providing confirmation of the business's bona fides from his accountant? They can also explain why the payments are all the same (I have seen the complaint before about PAYE usually making wage packets vary, and it can simply depend on the way the employer processes employees' pay).

[LadySSSS]

His employer said that he will assist with anything we need, to get this sorted. He is, however, very busy, and it is sometimes hard to get a hold of him. He said if we send email and give the list of all documents we need, he will sort it out with his book-keeper, and i will have all the docs i need.
So basically i need exact list of docs that should satisfy ECO or Immigration Judge.

[Casa]

If you can get a strong case together with evidence of employment and a paper trail showing everything is legitimate if I were you I would be inclined to submit a new application. Evidence which wasn't available to the ECO in the original application won't be considered at an appeal hearing.
I can understand that there may be 'agreements between your husband and his employer' that you don't want to mention on an open forum, but this in itself rings warning bells. The employer should have nothing to gain by deducting higher tax....unless of course he's not passing the tax deducted onto HMRC! Bear in mind that the UKBA have access to all information stored in other Government/official departments...including the tax office.

[LadySSSS]

Evidence which wasn't available to the ECO in the original application won't be considered at an appeal hearing.

Hmm... so ECO complained that we didn't provide evidence of my husband's self employment, and if i provide it now, it will not be considered? Now that makes me even more worried

I was considering making new application, but would like to save money, if i can.

[Casa]

You can't appeal a wrong decision if the ECO wasn't supplied with the evidence to enable him (or her) to make a correct decision.
You can if you choose, appeal and submit a new application at the same time.
However, the appeal process can be lengthy and you're likely to need the help of a legal professional, so the cost may be far higher than a new application.
The focus should be on proving your husband has the income from his current employment to support you both without claiming Public Funds. You could perhaps challenge the ECO's view that the employment wasn't genuine and ask for a reversal of the decision (without going to the appeal court), but you may need legal advice before proceeding with this.
My concern would be that the employer is not complying with the HMRC regulations and that your application will suffer as a result. Perhaps I'm being overly sceptical ...but that's probably how the ECO is viewing it too.

[LadySSSS]

Yes, when i think about it more now... The cost indeed can be much higher, and if i wait 2-3 months to submit new application, it will still be quicker than appeal. Oh my, guess me and my husband will have to make a decision about this. I do feel like new application is better option, and checking the other people's experiences, it does look that way.
About HMRC, my husband is going to phone them tomorrow and we will see what we can do.

[Greenie]

Evidence which wasn't available to the ECO in the original application won't be considered at an appeal hearing.

New evidence can be considered at the appeal hearing as long as it relates to the circumstances at the date of the decision. See Section 85(5)

[LadySSSS]

OK, so i spoke to my husband, and we decided we are going to apply again. It has already been too long since we got separated, and we can't afford waiting much more longer. However i look at it, it does look like visa processing is taking less time than appeal, so we are going to do that.
Now we have to make sure we collect every possible evidence to make sure ECO believes my husband is really employed and receives the wage he does. I can not afford failing application one more time, it s too stressful...

So i was thinking we could get next:
- Letter from his employer where he explains that he is sole trader business and that from that reason he couldn't be found in Company register website. Also, in this letter he could explain why PAYE is always the same.
- Another letter from employer giving the information about my husband's employment.
- Some document to show that he is registered business, maybe TAX number or something... I am not really familiar with this, so i would appreciate if somebody could tell me how the form is called exactly, so i could ask his employer for it.
- About wage slips, i am not sure i can make his employer change his wage slips, just because embassy is looking for extra information. As Casa stated previously, employer is not required to include these information on pay slips. I am not sure if we should ask his employer to make completely new pay slips only for my husband, from week 1, or just keep them as they are and include tax and NIC number on new ones?
- Evidence of self employment for last year. Hopefully that is enough and i dont need to send it for all years back?
- A letter from HMRC stating that he was actually been paid taxes for the job he is working at the moment.
- Bank account statements

Did i miss anything?

[pennylessinindia]

reading this whole post the most striking thing is the income tax discrepancies . Why would a genuine employer deduct more tax than needed . You perhaps need a bit of straight talking with your husband and get to the bottom of it all . If it is not clear to us folks here then I doubt you will satisfy anyone looking at your application

[LadySSSS]

I did spoke to him, and if i understood correctly, accountant asked my husband if he will be alright with paying that tax, because all the other guys working there are paying the same, and then at the end of the year they have right for tax return. So it was easier for accountant that way, and guys were happy with it, since they were looking at it as a way of savings. As i said previously, i dont know much about this, so i dont even know if this is alright thing to do or no.

[LadySSSS]

OK, so an update on this case... My husband phoned HMRC and it turned out that his employer didn't pay any taxes for him so far (4 months)... Surprise! The person in Tax Office said that might be because they were going to do it at the end of the year, which may be the case, but my husband was however suggested to talk to accountant and sort this out. So he is going to accountant Monday morning, and hopefully all this will be alright... Really such shame my application had to suffer, because somebody is not doing his job..

[Obie]

You can appeals and add supporting evidence to prove the authenticity of the document you provided. If your grounds are sound, the ECM may not proceed and simply issue the Entry clearance.

[LadySSSS]

I am sorry to bother you guys again, but since i cant find this information anywhere, i was wondering if you maybe know about this... I would appreciate any answer I have an update now considering my husband's employment, he talked to the accountant, and she said she will provide us with the letter from the company explaining things which ECO was concerned about... and all the necessary information we need. However, accountant also said that all taxes have been paid, but HMRC is not able to see them connected to my husband's name, because they paid them summary... or something along these lines (Again i dont really understand much about this subject, so i try to pick up the information my husband tells me). I am starting to be very concerned that something here is not alright, but it s in the other hand hard to believe because my husband knows owner of the company for many many years now, and they have been good friends, i dont think they would intentionally mess with him... Does this make any sense?

Ah right, dont know if this is maybe important information, he has been working for this company since may this year.