​Grant Thornton tax expert Mike Warburton says he believes thousands of people in Gloucestershire could be due tax rebates - and thousands may owe more:

The scale of errors admitted by HMRC seems to grow bigger each day. 

We now understand that across the country over 10 million of us might have overpaid tax totalling almost £5 billion with another 3 million people having underpaid tax of about £1.4 billion. 

HMRC are entitled to go back 6 years to collect underpaid tax, but taxpayers are also entitled to reclaim back overpayments from this period. 

To take a local example, Gloucestershire represents about 1% of the UK population. 

I estimate that about 100,000 residents of Gloucestershire may be due tax repayments averaging about £400 each. 

On the other hand, we could have about 30,000 people in Gloucestershire with underpayments of perhaps £14 million.  T

he Daily Mail today is mounting a campaign to encourage taxpayers to resist paying tax demands. 

We need to put this in context.  Everybody should abide by the law, but we are all entitled to claim our rights under a published Extra Statutory Concession A19 to have the tax set aside if we have been open in our dealings with the tax authorities and had reason to believe that our tax affairs were in order. 

My particular concern is for pensioners and others on low incomes for whom this demand will come as a severe blow. 

These are precisely the people who should be entitled to benefit from this concession and it is very important that it receives as wide a publicity as possible. 

Even if the tax man turns down your application, that need not be the end of the story. 

You are entitled to appeal to the Tribunal to have your case heard and they will be the final arbiter over whether or not the tax is payable.