Tax interactions

One area of contention that is causing my practice some difficulty is the interaction of the PAYE/NIC scheme and construction industry scheme (CIS) amounts deducted from income received by limited companies — this does not apply to sole traders or partnerships — and that may actually be discriminatory.

We have a couple of cases where the CIS deductions suffered exceed (one by quite a big chunk) the PAYE and NIC total on the P35. Thus at 5 April 2008 there is a big overpayment but getting this out of HMRC is very difficult. The responses from HMRC staff on the phone strongly suggest that they do not understand the system and the ability to set CIS against PAYE/NIC.

We keep getting questions such as 'how did the overpayment arise?' How about looking at the file?

By its very nature and effect the whole CIS scheme in...