HMRC Simplicity Awards

On the 3rd of December HMRC presented awards to those who, in the opinion of the judges, have helped make the tax system more simple and transparent.

Members of the judging panel included recent British Accountancy Awards Outstanding Contribution winner Paul Aplin, Tax Aid's Rosina Pullman and Taxation's Mike Truman. HMRC's panel members were Jim Harra, Ruth Owen and Jennie Granger.

The recipients were:

- Public Protection Division of Blackpool Council - for its support of the Blackpool Holiday Industry taskforce launched in July 2013;

- Karen Thomson, Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals and member of HMRC's Administrative Burdens Advisory Board - for helping to ensure that the impact of Real Time Information (RTI) on employers and their payroll processes was minimal;

- Philip Paur, Deloitte - for his contribution to the development and delivery of HMRC's policy and operational delivery on expatriate taxes;

- Brian Palmer, AAT - for his dedication to transparency, including being instrumental in driving HMRC's decision to publish information about post and contact centre performance.

The awards were presented by David Gauke, who is quoted by Accountancyage:

"There is some excellent work going on between HMRC and the tax community. By listening to and working with tax professionals HMRC can make the tax system in the UK as simple and transparent as possible."  

A fair way to go though methinks!


Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

HMRC's Voluntary Exit Scheme

As already noted on this site, HMRC is seeking to reduce headcount via a voluntary exit scheme.

Accountingweb reports that the aim is to cut 3,000 fixed-term contract roles in 21 offices. The rational being that more taxpayers are using online services.

Whilst there are no current plans to close the offices, it seems that staff have been told that the sites do not appear to "feature in HMRC's long-term plans".

A cynic might consider that this means that the plans for closing certain sites have yet to be drafted.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Identifying Tax Evasion Using Street View

As has been reported sometime ago HMRC make use of the internet and social networking sites to help identify possible tax evasion.

Shout99 notes that even Google Street View is being used by HMRC to identify lifestyles beyond those which equate to the income reported by suspected tax evaders.

However, Street View is not "real time" and what it shows may be misinterpreted. UHY Hacker Young pointed to an example of a taxpayer being wrongly identified as sending his/her children to a private school, because of a Street View image showing his fence with a poster advertising the school's fete. It transpired that the poster was in fact on the neighbour's fence.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Paperless Self-Assessment Consultation

On 27th November HMRC published a consultation paper on paperless self-assessment.

"HMRC proposes to upgrade its Self Assessment (SA) Online service to provide a complete end-to-end digital experience for customers. This upgrade provides the opportunity for customers already registered to use HMRC’s SA Online service to reduce the amount of paper communications they receive from HMRC and instead receive these electronically.........

.....HMRC proposes that customers registered to use its Self Assessment Online service will be able to provide their consent to HMRC using electronic communications in connection with their tax affairs rather than receiving paper notifications and outputs by post."

HMRC intends to take a staged approach, and if the appropriate legislation is in place will start trials in the early part of the tax year commencing 2014.

The consultation closes on 27th December this year.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Voluntary Redundancies

As this loyal reader has correctly pointed out, HMRC's voluntary redundancies are not just confined to Northern Ireland or Wales:

"Ken the voluntary exits are all over they include Ipswich, Kings Lynn, Barnsley, Plymouth amongst many others how come you think it's just NI. You usually more on the ball than this?"


Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Welsh Voluntary Redundancies

Northern Ireland is not the only part of the UK where HMRC staff face cuts in numbers.

The BBC reports that HMRC has said that 259 staff in Wales could apply for "voluntary exit".

There are 86 positions to be cut in Carmarthen, 81 in Colwyn Bay, 84 in Merthyr Tydfil and eight in Pembroke Dock.

The rationale is the same used by HMRC as for Northern Ireland; namely:

"An increasing number of customers are choosing to do business with us through our online services, which has reduced our need for physical sites. 

This change has seen the nature of our work shift away from mass-processing work of the past to more specialist, but less labour-intensive, roles required in effective policing of the tax system."

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Research Manager, Tax Policy and Insight

The ICAEW are currently looking to recruit a research manager for tax policy:

"The objective of the role is to further the study of taxation through research and thought leadership that supports succinct leading insight and opinion on big public policy issues.  The role offers an opportunity to engage with business, firms and tax authorities across a number of jurisdictions. The role requires excellent research, communication and writing skills and preferably working knowledge and experience of tax administration and operations.

Working alongside the ICAEW public policy team, the manager will engage stakeholders to discuss and raise awareness of these issues.

They, with the Head of Faculty, will also be assigned the objective of positively re-engaging the largest firms in the work of the ICAEW Tax Faculty and develop a longer term insight agenda.  For example, researching and preparing material on key issues: advancing the thinking on the ICAEW ten tenets of a better tax system, exploring the roles and responsibilities of the parties to the tax system and articulating the issues/principles that should underpin a 21^st century tax system.

This may include examining changes in the structure, organisation and regulatory environment for tax and the market for tax services contrasting the UK and equivalent developments in other countries through contact with practitioners, academics, tax authorities, professional groupings and ICAEW international offices.

The manager will also analyse tax systems, identify common themes and approaches to tax operations as well as identifying problems and solutions which can then be made publicly available, whether by way of reports or other means of communication.

Specific duties will vary from time to time in line with the business needs."

Those interested can apply via this link ICAEW.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Newry and Londonderry Voluntary Redundancies

It is interesting that HMRC state that the rationale for the voluntary redundancies in Newry and Londonderry is the fact that "an increasing number of customers are choosing to do business with us through our online services, which has reduced our need for physical sites...", because both of these sites deal with specialist issues not specifically affected by an increased use of online services.

Specifically Londonderry houses the Appeals Reviews Unit, and Newry is the CIS centre. 

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"