DMBM209225 - Irregular Payments: Self Assessment: Unidentified payments in SA
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Unidentified Payments
Where you receive a payment without a reference or with no indication for which HoD it is for and you can trace the appropriate customer record the payment is to be allocated in the following order of priority
- Pre-SA liabilities (including any interest)
- The customer's SA record
However, if the customer indicates at the time of the payment that a pre-SA charge or an increase to an existing pre-SA charge is expected then you should send the payment to OAS and not allocate it to the customer's SA record.
Note: Where such a payment would create a credit balance on the customer's SA account you should allocate the excess to OAS to avoid any potential automatic repayment being made to the customer.
Where you cannot trace either a pre-SA liability or an SA reference number you should send the payment to in OAS until the payment can be allocated.
Where a payment is clearly for SA but you cannot trace a reference number you should send the payment to OAS. You should then follow the procedures as detailed in Unidentified Payments DMBM209140.
Important Note: The investigation of all unidentified payments remains the responsibility of the receiving office.