David Bunting To Become Interim HMRC General Counsel

Last week I noted that Gill Aitken, HMRC’s General Counsel and Solicitor, is to leave HMRC on 30 June, to take up a new role as Registrar at the University of Oxford.

Whilst HMRC start the "open" recruitment process an interim appointment will be made.

Step forward David Bunting, who currently works in the cross-government Border Delivery Group, as its interim general counsel and solicitor.

Civil Service World reports that Bunting trained in the Inland Revenue and has more than 20 years’ legal experience. He has led HMRC legal teams dealing with tax policy and legislation in relation to UK business and environmental taxes including Corporation Tax, VAT, Customs and Excise duties, oil and gas taxation, Landfill Tax, Climate Change Levy and betting and gaming duties. He has also led HMRC’s litigation activity.

In 2008 he became a senior civil servant, and in 2012 was appointed legal director at HMRC. In 2017 he moved to the Border Delivery Group – a cross-government team led by HMRC’s director general for border coordination Karen Wheeler, which focuses on the operational and practical impacts of Brexit on UK borders.

On 1 July, Bunting will become director general of the Solicitor’s Office and Legal Services Group and will join the department’s executive committee, reporting to chief executive Jon Thompson.

There will be an open recruitment process in the coming months to fill the role permanently, and HMRC said it would confirm any new arrangements in the Border Delivery Group in due course.
Aitken has been at the tax agency since 2014. Commenting on her departure, Thompson said: “She has helped to shape our departmental strategy and I’ll really miss her wise counsel.”

What's the betting that Bunting becomes permanent?

New arrangements in the Border Delivery Group will be announced (decided) in due course.


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.

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Beware HMRC's Enablers - Crassly Ignorant Reporters Looking For a Cheap Headline

Bruce Forsyth 'dodged inheritance tax' by leaving £11.7m to wife over kids

Is this was what HMRC campaigns and media hysteria about tax planning has really come to? Criticising use of the IHT spouse exemption? Quite frightening. https://t.co/mk2i6UXbdw

— Mark McLaughlin (@charteredtax) June 19, 2018

IHT spousal exemption is not "tax dodging"!

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 Harasses Those With Mental Health Problems

HMRC has been criticised for failing to recognise mental health issues after it continued to target vulnerable taxpayers despite being issued with warnings from medical professionals.

The Telegraph states that is has been contacted by some of its readers who said their mental health had deteriorated because of the way they had been hounded for cash by HMRC.

In some cases this pursuit continued even after HMRC acknowledged that they were vulnerable. In one instance a high-profile figure attempted suicide after HMRC failed to correctly note his vulnerable person status and continued to contact him.

Others have been left unable to work after suffering anxiety and depression as a result of HMRC inquiries, while one reader asked solicitors to intervene on his behalf.  These cases highlight the lack of recognition and protection for those with mental health difficulties.

HMRC apologised for not meeting its own guidelines, losing letters and failing to return calls.

Andrew Neil, an IT contractor from Llandudno, sent multiple letters from doctors to HMRC, which ignored them.

HMRC acknowledged that Mr Neil was a vulnerable person in November 2016, but continued to send letters and contact him by telephone. The taxman also lost a letter sent by Mr Neil for almost four months and failed to call his wife back after she tried to intervene.

It has apologised for each of these oversights.

Mr Neil and others are among the thousands of people targeted by the taxman because of the way they structured their finances in the past, using loans instead of payments for their income.

These tax arrangements, which were generally considered legal at the time, have since been challenged by HMRC.

Those who have fallen foul now face large tax bills and penalties, sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of pounds. Because of the way HMRC is seeking to collect the tax, the “loan charge” payments due could be much higher than the amount originally owed.

HMRC told Telegraph Money it had safeguards in place to support those with mental health problems.That's all very well, but from the above it seems that HMRC does not follow its own rulebook on the subject of mental health!

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"

Tax Gap £33BN

The tax gap slightly increased to £33bn (5.7%) in 2016/17, up from the previous year's revised figure of 5.7% (£32bn). This year, despite the gap increase, the percentage remained at 5.7%.

The tax gap is the difference between the amount of tax that should be paid to HMRC and what is actually paid.

HMRC note that 41% of the tax gap came from small businesses. The group is responsible for an overall gap of £13.7bn. Large businesses accounted for a further £7bn.

The majority of the tax gap came from failing to pay income tax (IT), national insurance contributions (NICs) and capital gains tax (CGT), amounting to a total of £13.5bn. Unpaid value added tax also contributed £11.7bn to the tax gap and corporate tax added £3.5bn.

The tax gap was driven by failure to take reasonable care (£5.9bn), by criminal acts (£5.4bn), tax evasion (£5.3bn), legal interpretation (£5.3bn), non-payment (£3.5bn), error (£3.2bn), hidden economy (£3.2bn) and finally tax avoidance (£1.7bn).

In other words, despite government and HMRC BS, avoidance is not the key issue!

Catherine Robbins, partner at Pinsent Masons, is quoted in economia:

“Very few businesses are engaged in tax avoidance schemes now and as HMRC hunts for new sources of revenue, it is increasingly coming down hard on basic, almost routine errors.”

Basically HMRC will go after low hanging fruit, ie:

- SME's
- Individual taxpayers

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"

Completely Cretinous

The proposal for a post-Brexit customs arrangement, that the EU rejected, has cost taxpayers £680K in consultancy fees paid by HMRC to McKinsey & Company.

The contract awarded in January and lasting until March saw McKinsey taken on to provide an “assessment of import initiated supply chain and commercial feasibility” of the UK continuing to manage tariffs on imports destined for the EU despite having left the bloc’s customs union, while also enforcing its own independent tariff regime. 

While McKinsey has not commented on the work, a spokesperson for the Treasury – which oversees Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) – was quoted as saying that the government wanted to “harness expertise from both the private and public sector” to “ensure trade with the EU is as frictionless as possible.” 

Jacob Rees-Mogg described it as “completely cretinous” and a “betrayal of common sense.” 

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"

Gill Aitken To Leave HMRC

Gill Aitken, HMRC’s General Counsel and Solicitor, is to leave HMRC on 30 June, to take up a new role as Registrar at the University of Oxford.

As per HMRC:

A recruitment exercise will begin in due course, and interim arrangements for the leadership of the Solicitors Office and Legal Services team will be confirmed shortly.
Gill said:

Law really shapes and changes lives and I have been fortunate in having a civil service career so close to the buzz of politics. I have been able to influence and support decisions which affect our lives and society.

HMRC Chief Executive Jon Thompson said:

I’m hugely grateful to Gill for her contribution to HMRC. She has led a very successful litigation team that has protected billions in revenue and has played a vital role in shaping complex tax legislation. She has helped to shape our departmental strategy and I’ll really miss her wise counsel.

In 2013 I noted:

"HMRC have appointed a new general counsel to replace the retiring Anthony Inglese. Gill Aitken from the Department of Work & Pensions’ (DWP) where she is director general of legal services, will take up the role at the end of January 2014.

As an aside, in 2010 she topped the DWP bonus league by earning a £10K bonus on top of her £125K salary."

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"