Aspire Renegotiated

HMRC has renegotiated its Aspire contract for IT with service providers Capgemini, Accenture and Fujitsu.

The renegotiated contract (the second time HMRC has done this in 2 years) aims to save £110M per annum by scrapping the legacy systems taken on board by the merger of the Revenue and Customs and Excise, and by shutting down a number of data centres.

The service providers will have exclusivity until 2013. All of HMRC's IT expenditure will now be channelled through Aspire, locking out any other potential suppliers.

CEO of Capgemini Aspire, Nigel Martin is quoted on Crystal Umbrella:

"The new agreement would not have been possible without our track record of reliable service and up to 200 projects delivered on time and within budget for HMRC each and every year."

I wonder if reality will live up to hype?

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Petition

Patrick Reynolds has set up a petition on the Number 10 Website, calling for HMRC create a similar system:

"There are large numbers of matters of detailed routine in tax matters and in dealings with HMRC that are inefficient and waste a great deal of time. Accountants, tax payers and advisers are well aware of many of them, as are many HMRC staff.

HMRC should be required to have a web site where such matters could be posted. Postings would be restricted to matters of administration and procedures. Postings on individual cases or on taxation policy would not be permitted. HMRC would not be obliged to take account of requests made for changes. They would however be required to explain why aspects of poor administration were allowed to remain unchanged."

I doubt that this will ever come to fruition, as HMRC is not managing to cope with the current levels of enquiries and paperwork etc.

You can sign the petition via this link HMRC Petition.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Too Complex

As noted many times on this site the tax system, as it currently stands, is far too complex.

Michael Izza (CEO of the ICAEW), in an interview with AccountingWEB, says the very same thing:

"Q: In the ICAEW's Enterprise survey, 54% of respondents said UK regulatory and tax environment was 'not very' or 'not at all' business friendly. Employment tax and legislation and business tax changes were all regarded a hindrance. Why do you think businesses responded so negatively and what do you think can be done to improve the situation?

A: This is a constant refrain, and we hear this from businesses of all sizes. We have a great opportunity this year because we're moving into the last few months of this government, there has to be an election no later than June 2010 and this is now the time when business people of all sizes can start to talk to their MPs (or prospective MPs) about the things that bother them and the legislative changes they would like to see.

The institute has issued a manifesto and that was something we were talking to politicians about at the three main party conferences in September and October. One of the themes in it is that we need a more simplified government in this country. An area which I'm sure many of your members will be familiar with is the tax code. The tax code in this country now runs to over 11,200 pages.

There is nobody in HMRC who understands that from A-Z. There is no chartered accountant in this country who understands it from A – Z, it's just become too complicated. We have an opportunity to make something like that more simple, for everyone in business. This is the sort of thing we should be talking to the politicians about now and saying we want to see it changed.

We're at one of those moments in history where because of the economic crisis that we've just experienced and the fact that things are going to be very different going forward, we might be able to make a very significant change in something like that; and that's the sort of thing the institute is going to be asking for."

Never let a "good" crisis go to waste!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Don't Believe The Hype

As Dave Hartnett bestrides the net like a colossus, warning tax evaders that they may be banged up in jail, and HMRC gets "heavy" with tax avoidance schemes and offshore financial centres it may be worthwhile focusing on how much tax is actually lost as a result of offshore and onshore tax avoidance schemes (legal).

Last year the TUC conducted some research that they said proved that tax avoidance by the 50 largest companies in the FTSE 100 was depriving the Treasury of £11.8BN.

Deloittes decided to analyse the TUC's research, and concluded that it was bollocks. The amount of tax that the Treasury "loses" from companies using avoidance techniques and offshore tax havens is in fact less than £2BN.

In addition to Deloittes rubbishing the TUC claims, a recently published Treasury report into offshore tax havens (British Offshore Financial Centres) highlights the important role played by the Crown Dependencies in funding banks on the UK mainland.

Which is kind of ironic, given that HMRC and the Treasury have been vilifying these places for sometime now describing them as havens for "evil" tax avoiders and tax evaders.

The report notes that the Crown Dependencies make a "significant contribution to the liquidity of the UK market".

Given the parlous state of the Brown's Bankrupt Britain, and the fact that despite owning several banks the government appears to be powerless to increase bank lending (thus kickstarting a recovery), the liquidity provided by these offshore centres is even more vital to our embattled economy.

The report notes that in the second quarter of this year, they provided net funds to banks in the UK of £195BN.

Oh and what makes these offshore centres a magnate for inflows of money, that are then funnelled into the UK?

That would be their low tax rates!

The same low tax rates that our blinkered Treasury is telling them to raise.

Could it be that the Treasury and HMRC are trying to use tax avoidance and smear offshore financial centres, as diversionary tactic to take people's attention away from the Treasury's and HMRC's economic mismanagement and incompetence?

Surely not!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Hartnett On YouTube

Dave Hartnett follows the Prime Minister's successful foray onto YouTube, and warns offshore tax evaders that they may go to jail.

Couldn't someone from HMRC told him to comb his hair first though?

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Delusions of Infallibility

It seems that there are some in HMRC who have Papal delusions, and believe that they are infallible.

That at least is the conclusion one may draw from the phone conversation reported by Accountancy Age, between a taxpayer (reclassified by HMRC as "deceased") and a member of staff from one of HMRC's call centres.

After persuading HMRC to reinstate her as "living", she went on to ask how the mistake had occurred.

Answer:

"We don't make mistakes, madam."

Alrighty then!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Spin II

Ironically, a few days after I wrote this:

"Lumping tax avoidance with tax evasion is part of the ongoing game of media spin and manipulation being played by the government and HMRC, to make people think of them as the same.

They are not the same!

Like it or not, tax avoidance is legitimate and will be with us as long as there are taxes."

Mike Warburton, private client director at Grant Thornton, was quoted in Accountancy Age:

"The government has tried to treat avoidance and evasion as if one is leading into the other.

It's perfectly clear avoidance is legal, evasion isn't; but the Revenue is trying to muddy the lines between them."

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Online Glitch

It seems that, ironically at the very same time that HMRC are telling people to avoid problems with the post strike and file online, people are experiencing problems with HMRC's online self-assessment system.

The Telegraph reports some people have been met with messages on screen saying that there had been an error, and that it was "unable to verify" that their information had been successfully submitted. The Times letters page also reports problems.

Spiffing!

A spokesman for HMRC is quoted by the paper:

"We are very sorry if anyone has had trouble getting through and we will look into any particular problems but the vast majority of taxpayers are not experiencing any difficulties.

There are still nearly four months left to file on-line but it's best to do so early because the system becomes extremely busy during January."

This implies that the system cannot handle peak load.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Incoherent

The National Audit Office recently reported that approximately 1.5M pensioners have overpaid around £250M in tax since 2002-3, as a result of discrepancies between HMRC records and tax deducted by employers and pension providers.

On the flip side of the coin, approximately 500,000 pensioners have underpaid approximately £103M of tax.

Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, has called on HMRC to provide a more coherent service:

"Older people want to pay the right amount of tax, but too many pay more than they need to because they do not claim allowances to which they are entitled and because of errors.

By providing a more coherent service, HMRC could make substantial savings as the number of enquiries from older people about their tax affairs would reduce - a win-win situation for all."

This situation is not entirely of HMRC's making, a large "dollop of blame pie" must be dished up to the government for creating such a complex and unwieldy tax system in the first place.

How on earth are people (taxpayers and those who work for HMRC, who are also taxpayers) meant to be au fait with this behemoth that they have created?

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Wooden Money

The Herald reports that a number of Scottish councils are getting very excited over the possibility of receiving tax rebates on VAT overpayments made during earlier periods (in some cases claims have been made dating back 35 years).

Seemingly councils, individuals and companies have received, to date, around £1.5BN in rebates from HMRC; eg Glasgow recovered £2.6M in VAT wrongly accounted for on hostel charges from 1974 to 1996, as well £3M in interest.

The councils will use the money to offset budget cuts.

All very well, maybe.

However, the rebates of "wooden money" are merely going from one organ of the state to another; no real income in the overall scheme of public finances has been received, the money "gained" by the councils will have to be saved elsewhere by the government and cuts then passed on to the councils.

They are spending time, effort and money scrambling after "wooden money"

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"