Befuddled taxpayer

The taxpayer had been an employee and taxed under the PAYE system for 25 years up to January 2011.

In 2008/09 and 2009/10 he had three jobs concurrently. One was for ten hours a week with Allied Cleaning which always paid him in cash saying tax due had been deducted but failing to provide the taxpayer with payslips despite being asked for them.

HMRC calculated the taxpayer had underpaid tax of £2 300 for the two years. The sum could not be collected via his tax code because it was more than £2 000.

The taxpayer asked for a time to pay arrangement because he could not afford to repay the amount in full; the Revenue said he first had to complete self assessment returns for 2008/09 and 2009/10.

The did so but failed to sign one of the forms. By the time HMRC...