Rail worker told he faces possible £14,301,369,864,489 tax bill

Bangla sanglap desk: A railway worker has been left in a financial pickle after he was sent a tax coding notice for £14 trillion.

Giles Hembrough received notice telling him he may pay too little tax to the tune of the 14-figure sum when he got home from the pub and was told his tax code was changing.

The letter from HMRC said: ‘We think the amount you owe HMRC is £14,301,369,864,489.03.

‘We will let you know if this amount is right when we look at your tax return for the year.’

Mr Hembrough said: ‘I have had lots of tax errors recently so I thought it was just an update.

‘When I noticed the figure at the bottom I had to do a double take. I was incredibly surprised of course it was such a big number.’

HMRC was very keen to stress that it wasn’t a bill and that it was just a change of tax code.

If it did come through as a bill he could end up paying it in monthly instalments of £1.2trillion a month – or keep paying it at his current tax rate over the next 369million years.

He added: ‘I gave HMRC a ring and said to the woman that I thought my code was wrong.

‘When she opened my file she said “Oh that is a big amount it looks like someone has fallen asleep on the keyboard”.’

Mr Hembrough is hoping that his tax code has returned to normal and is enjoying sharing the story with his friends and family.

‘I have been showing it round,’ he added. ‘Most people just find it really funny. I will be checking my pay check closely though next month.’

A spokesman for HMRC said: ‘When we let a customer down, we always apologise and put matters right.’