Tax Avoidance - The Great Leveller

Contrary to what some in the media would have us believe it is not just "evil" mega corporations that seek to reduce their tax bills via tax avoidance schemes, but honest hard working ex Labour MPs.

Step forward Peter Mandelson.

Avoidance is the great leveller, putting politicians and corporations on the same field. Thus I am often gemused as to why some MPs keep bleating about avoidance, given that they and their accountants are happily doing their best to legally reduce their personal tax bills.

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"

Reasonable Excuses For Late Filing

As the deadline for online filing is almost upon us, there will be taxpayers who miss the deadline and will face a fine.

Here are a list of "reasonable" excuses that HMRC will "consider" (but not necessarily accept) as mitigation against incurring a fine , as per the Telegraph:

• Your partner died shortly before the tax return or payment deadline
• You had an unexpected stay in hospital that prevented you from dealing with your tax affairs
• Your computer or software failed just before or while you were preparing your online return
• There were “service issues” with HMRC’s website
• A fire prevented you from completing your tax return
• Postal delays that you could not have predicted

Good luck to all who have yet to file!

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 Aspires To Havoc

As loyal readers know, HMRC's Aspire contract is regularly given a sound and well deserved kicking by various organs (eg NAO).

This time it falls to PAC to kick the bloated corpse that is Aspire.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has warned that HMRC faces an “enormous challenge” in adapting its IT services contract, a change that could cause “havoc” to public finances.

New contract rules set out by the Cabinet Office will require HMRC to move to a short-term contracting model.

Richard Bacon, PAC member and Conservative MP for South Norfolk, is quoted by economia:

“HMRC faces an enormous challenge in moving to a new contracting model by 2017, with many short-duration contracts with multiple suppliers, and appears complacent given the scale of the transformation required. 

Moreover, HMRC’s record in managing IT contractors gives us little confidence that HMRC can successfully achieve this transition or that it can manage the proposed model effectively to maximise value for money.” 

He added that HMRC appeared “overly complacent” given the scale of the required transformation.

“Failure to collect taxes efficiently would create havoc with the public finances.”

PAC recommended that HMRC develops and produces a realistic plan as to how it would – along with the Cabinet Office – implement the transition.

HMRC are not worried. An HMRC spokesperson said:

“We are making significant progress in preparing for a smooth and effective transition from the Aspire contract, which will give HMRC control over the development and delivery of digital services and enable us to make efficiencies of up to 25 per cent by 2021. 

We have already opened one new HMRC digital delivery centre in Newcastle, and have plans for others to increase our in-house digital capability, and in December we agreed an amendment to Aspire which allows us to contract services directly with major IT suppliers.”

No worries then!

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"

Abysmal

A survey conducted by the ICAEW has found that around 33% of accountants who responded are of the view that the service provided by HMRC has deteriorated over the least year.

Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said that HMRC staff were unable to do things correctly first time. Tax agents also said it took too long to answer the post or pick up the phone.

Paul Aplin, tax partner of AC Mole & Sons, is quoted in the FT:

“My worry is that poor telephone service will impact on people’s willingness to pay tax.

You can do more with less up to a point but I simply do not believe that the decline in service standards is unrelated to 10 years of cuts.”

Martin Bryars of Bryars & Co, described HMRC telephone service as “abysmal”. He said he had been automatically cut off after holding on for 30 minutes last Tuesday. The service was “very frustrating and costly in terms of time” and had worsened over the past two or three years.

HMRC said:

“We are working hard to further improve our handling of customer calls and have moved up to 1,500 extra people on to the phones during January as the self-assessment deadline approaches.”

HMRC believes that the future lies online; costs and errors will be reduced by moving services online (eg tax forms will be pre-populated with taxpayers' employment information).

This may improve some aspects of the communication flows between some taxpayers and HMRC. However, not all taxpayers are tax savvy nor do they all have access to the internet.

Robin Williamson of the Low Income Tax Reform Group said:

“The digital strategy is not going to succeed in the short to medium term unless digital speeds increase.” 

We shall see.

As loyal readers have noted in the past, if the underlying systems within HMRC (eg desktops and basic operating systems etc) are out of date and don't communicate with each other then there will continue to be problems.

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"

Fake HMRC Emails

As the online tax return deadline looms, there are criminals intent on milking this as an opportunity for their own gain. As such, the internet is awash with scam emails purporting to come from HMRC wrt tax returns.

Indeed, my email box this morning contained a veritable smorgasbord of emails "querying my tax return".

HMRC do not send out emails like this, do not under any circumstances reply or send your personal details to any such emails.

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 Loses Tax Records

Those of you with long memories will recall datagate 2007, when HMRC lost data records of around 25 million people.

Stepping forward to 2015 and HMRC have managed to lose some more data (not of 25 million people, but data of one person). Unfortunately for HMRC the data they lost is that relating to David Savil who is an accountant and head of Bishop Fleming a business services firm.

Mr Savil (who has not moved home for 17 years) received a letter from HMRC telling him that HMRC was "unable to trace" his records.


He is quoted by Accountancy Age:

"Having paid considerable sums in tax every year for three decades, and not having moved home for 17 years, I could not believe that HMRC has managed to lose my tax record.

Despite the millions of tax assessments that they get wrong each year, HMRC has been seeking the power to grab funds from our bank accounts. I'm an accountant, so I've been ardent in providing HMRC with my tax submissions every year. But, somehow, they've managed to lose track of me on their radar screen.

If they can make so simple an error in my case, it underlines my belief that they should not be permitted to have their proposed power to grab money from the bank accounts of tax-payers that they decide have under-paid."

HMRC has been asked for comment.

Does anyone have any viable theories as to how long standing tax records can simply vanish like 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"