Problems with Standard Life letters getting lost in the post

I sent both my wife’s and my own Standard Life payment election form – electing for the capital option – in their supplied “no stamp required” envelope a good 10 days before March 18th.

My wife’s payment arrived first, some two weeks before mine. I phoned Capita and, with some communication problems, established that she was paid by the income option and that mine would be also.

The person I spoke to was quite abrupt and said the forms had not arrived by due date and effectively I was wasting their time and mine as it was now a fait accompli.

I wondered if the “no stamp” envelope might have been the problem and phoned An Post on the only number I could find and was told emphatically that such an item would not be accepted without a stamp and would be classed as “no postage paid” and sent to their unit in Roscommon where they were six weeks behind, but eventually the item would be opened and returned to sender if possible.

I phoned Capita again to tell them that and they assured me this was prepaid even though international.

An Post later said that the usual outcome was that the item was delivered okay but was lost in the addressee's premises and turned up in time.

I passed that information on to Capita who said that even if that was the case, the method of payment still could not be changed (even if it was going to cost me €3,000).

Capita said they would phone me back if they had any update and they actually did few days later but only to say still no sign of my letter.

Mr DL, email

Well, I stand corrected. Having spoken on several occasions to An Post and Royal Mail, I have always been assured that mail between Ireland and Britain takes between three and five days to arrive – and I have to say that reflects my own experience.

As a result, I have expressed incredulity at the prospect of mail sent 10 days or more before a deadline not arriving in time – both in last year's Vodafone-Verizon fiasco and now with the Standard Life return of value. In fact, following last week's letter on this issue, I have been contacted by people who sent their forms back a full three weeks ahead of the March 18th deadline opting for a capital payment – only to be told their letter was not received in time and they had been sent the payment as income.

However, it now appears that, in this case at least, there appears to have been a major problem with the mail.

Having approached Standard Life last week with readers’ comments, it told me that a batch of about 4,000 return of value forms from Irish shareholders, together with other mail, arrived in the offices of its registrar Capita – which was managing the operation – between April 7th and 9th, after the Easter weekend. That’s a full three weeks after the deadline and means that some people’s letters were in the system for up to six weeks.

Standard Life, which says it processed more than 80,000 return of value forms by post, accepts that these letters were sent well ahead of the deadline. It tells me it is talking to the Royal Mail and An Post to determine what happened.

Given the similarities, it does make you wonder whether a similar mail issue was responsible for at least some of the chaos around the Vodafone/Verizon return of value last year.

That being said – as you were told by the Standard Life call centre – it is apparently not possible to reopen the return of value to alter the method in which you have been paid. I’m not fully across the legalities of these things but issues like return of value and how they are conducted are very tightly regulated.

What Standard Life has undertaken to do is to write to all of the 4,000 or so shareholders involved and to contact the Revenue Commissioners to explain the background to the confusion.

However, Revenue tells me that it is obliged to treat the payment as liable for income – regardless of the acceptance by Standard Life that there was a genuine problem with the exercise.

When this happened last year with Vodafone, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan had to include a measure in the budget to ensure people were not unfairly out of pocket. It looks like we will have to await a similar measure this year.

Addressing a couple of specific points in your letter, the confused responses from your contact with An Post do little to engender confidence in its role in the fiasco. The international business reply envelopes that were sent out by Standard Life and used by you are a perfectly valid form of postage.

They are internationally recognised as postage paid and if anyone in An Post was sending them to quarantine in Roscommon or elsewhere, there are serious issues for the State company.

Capita was correct in its information about the status of the envelopes and its treatment of late returns, whatever the reason. Also, I have raised the “abrupt” nature of some of the interaction between frustrated shareholders and Standard Life call centre staff.

Making sense of capital gains tax multiplier You recently listed a website to get information on multipliers. I opened the site but only your article in The Irish Times appears and I don't see any multiplier.

Mr KL, email

In the recent piece of working out capital gains on inherited shares, I did include a link to the table if multipliers relating to shares that were acquired up to and including 2002.

As usual with these things, I tested the link twice to ensure it worked, only for gremlins to distort the link as it appeared in the paper.

If you try again and click on this link to the pdf document – www.revenue.ie/en/ tax/cgt/leaflets/cgtmult.pdf – it should provide you with the information you seek.

Send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, 24-28 Tara Street, Dublin 2, or email dcoyle@irishtimes.com. This column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice.