You Need Friends

Private Eye have an interesting report about the manager of HMRC's East Kilbride call centre (Robert Bowering).

Seemingly, before being appointed in June 2009, he had been made bankrupt (to the tune of £75K) by...errmmm...HMRC!

Sadly for HMRC it has been deemed unlikely that they will ever recover one penny of this.

How did he get his job (paid at higher than the normal rate) then?

Easy, he is friends with HMRC's director of contact centres, Linda Maslen. They were even linked on Faecesbook, until the Eye started looking into it!

Impressive isn't it?

Have no fear though, HMRC told the Eye that "correct procedures had been followed".

It saddens me to see that there are a number of people attracted to working for the state, and its many organs, who like to hide behind "procedures" when anything goes wrong.

These people are effectively brain dead, and are incapable of intuitive/creative thought or acting with initiative outwith a set of rigid written procedures. Their primary function is to ensure that when the shit hits the fan they can claim that they followed procedures, thus ensuring they are not blamed.

Here is some free advice to these people:

1 Procedures cannot cover every eventuality.

2 In the unlikely event that procedures could ever cover every eventuality, the outcome resulting from rigidly following those procedures may still well be sub optimal.

Certain circumstances require people and organisations to look outside a rigid procedural framework and ask certain basic questions, eg "if we take this action how will it look to others (eg taxpayers) outside of our organisation?".

Clearly HMRC did not ask themselves this question.

Here is the full article, unedited:

"AS IF a National Audit Office report last month detailing 44 million missed telephone calls last year (47 percent of those made) didn't pose enough questions over HM Revenue & Customs' 'contact centres', the Eye has discovered some very unusual arrangements for choosing the people to run them.

HMRC's first call centre, and still one of its largest, is in East Kilbride, just outside Glasgow. Since June last year it has been managed by a certain Robert Bowering, a call centre veteran with firms including HSBC and call centre outsourcing firm beCogent Ltd. But his appointment at HMRC was far from his first encounter with the taxman.

At Linlithgow sheriff court in March, just three months before he started working at HMRC, Bowering had been made bankrupt… by HMRC!

Bowering's debt, the origins of which are not known, stands at £75,545, of which the Accountant in Bankruptcy (Scotland's insolvency service) officially estimates it will recover, er, precisely £0. So how did a man made bankrupt over unpaid tax land a job advising everybody else on their tax bills?

Mr Bowering was brought in - on higher pay than the normal level for his grade - by a personal friend of his: the department's director of contact centres, Linda Maslen. Until the Eye became interested, the two could be found as each other's 'friend' on their Facebook pages. They had worked at HSBC's firstdirect telephone banking business at the same time in the 1990s.

HMRC insists that, although Maslen had 'advocated' her chum's appointment, the correct procedures had then been followed taking into account 'the risks posed by appointing someone who is insolvent, and the organisation's ability to manage those risks'.

So that's all right, 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"

Hartnett Places HMRC Above The Law

Fresh from his junket to Washington, Dave Hartnett continues to believe that he bestrides the world like a colossus and that all should tremble before him.

His latest "battle against evil" will, seemingly, be waged against lawyers.

Hartnett is, as we know, fixated on the "evil" people who try to avoid tax (despite the fact that avoidance is not only legal, but logical).

Hartnett is extremely angry that lawyers are offering tax avoidance advice to clients. This advice is protected by legal privilege (ie HMRC can't get their hands on the lawyers' files, as they now can do with accountants).

Hartnett wants legal privilege to be overturned when it comes to HMRC. In other words, he wants to place HMRC above the law!

Quite an ambitious little civil servant isn't he?

Beware little men with big ambitions.

Why such evangelical zeal from a man who has, until the last few years, been absolutely invisible?

The answer is simple, some moons ago Hartnett butt kissed Brown and promised him that all his financial needs could be met if only HMRC were given more power. He gave Gordon a glimpse of a future overflowing with honey, derived from unlimited revenues harvested by HMRC's new powers.

The trouble is Hartnett's promises have not come to fruition. People are not prepared to kowtow and roll over to play dead to the government's desire to milk them dry, and are either leaving the country or ensuring that they pay as little tax as legally possible. Thus Hartnett is left looking rather foolish.

It the last act of a desperate man to try to place himself/his organisation above the law.

Hartnett should remember that legal professional privilege is a fundamental human and democratic right, and a cornerstone in the administration of justice. Tamper with that, and we move one step further forward towards dictatorship.

Hartnett though is more interested in saving his own skin, rather than preserving the rule of law or the rights of the British people.

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 Filing

My thanks to a loyal reader who sent me a copy of a letter that he has sent to HMRC, concering probelms he has had trying to file his tax return online.

Relatively "small beer" compared with the other issues in HMRC being reported, and due to come out!

"Dear Sirs,

Following HMRC recommendations in SA150-59 (How to fill in your Tax Return) I opted to file on-line.

This document makes it clear that the on-line filing deadline is 31 January 2010.

Your reminder letter dated ** Dec 2009 (received 3 January 2010) underlines this date. At the end of the final paragraph on page 2 the letter adds that 7 days are required to receive an activation pin.

Neither HMRC TV publicity nor any of the HMRC Tax Return documentation mentions this requirement.

Not arriving until 3 January 2010 this letter still allowed 21 days for filing.

I registered on-line and waited 7 days for the activation pin without result.

On ** January I called the on-line help desk. I was advised to wait another week.
(call-ref:***)

Concerned at the continued non-delivery of the activation pin, on ** January (13 days later) I called the on-line help desk. (case ref:***).

On 27 Jan I was informed to wait a further 3 days and then apply for a new activation pin which will be sent in a further 7 days, which will arrive while I am away from this address **-** Feb 2010.

I have made every effort to follow HMRC recommendations and instructions to the letter. Due to problems in HMRC this has been without result. I therefore expect that any penalty will be waived in full.

Yours faithfully..."

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"

Liar Liar!

My thanks to a loyal reader who has advised me that this weekend many hundreds of child benefit customers have received letters from HMRC re child benefit.

Apparently these letters give client details. However, on page 2 of each letter the details provided are those of someone other than the intended addressee.

The information disclosed includes such matters as bank details and amounts being paid.

This is of course a breach of the Data Protection Act.

I am further advised that HMRC call centre advisers have been told that if "customers" ring in to complain about these letters, then the "customer" should be lied to and told that their letter was an accident and that no other have complained about such a mistake.

Seemingly, as at the end of last Saturday, HMRC have recorded quite a number of calls complaining about this data breach.

One final point, the Civil Service Code dictates that employees must be honest at all times. Unsurprisingly many advisers are not happy about being told to lie.

Updates on this story would be most welcome.

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"

I Don't Believe It!

Is this true?

"Well, as a member of HMRCs floundering Field Farce ( sorry, Field Force ) I was astonished to be told that, due to cut-backs in budgets, myself and twenty of my colleagues were forbidden from making calls for an astonishing 6 weeks recently. We had absolutely NOTHING to do instead. So we did nothing for 6 weeks. Managers aware of this, staff furious. You couldn't make it up......."

Even I am gobsmacked at this!

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"

Deadline

I hope everyone managed to finish inputting their online tax declarations before the end of yesterday (deadline for submissions)?

Submissions after that date will attract an automatic £100 fine, and late payments will be subject to interest charges.

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"

HMRC's Coding Enigma II

The confusion over HMRC's erroneous tax codes being sent out this year continues to rumble on.

Yesterday an HMRC spokesman said:

"It's a hangover from the old system.

Before we had five or six systems sending out tax codes, but because of last year's upgrade we now have one. The new system is basically picking up duplicates from the old one and flushing them out.

The new system is working as it should, and we're confident that it will not happen again in future."

Today, on their own website, HMRC (having been stung into action by the media) now say:

"The transition to the new system has, however brought to light discrepancies in our existing records and this is resulting in a number of incorrect notices being issued.

The vast majority of notices will be correct but there will be cases where, because the data carried over from our old systems does not match employers' data, some people receive an incorrect coding notice or more than one coding notice for the same employment because of these discrepancies.

This is a transitional issue caused by data mismatches, rather than an IT issue and will be resolved once we have cleared these from the system."

So it's not "duplicates", but "discrepancies in existing records". It most certainly isn't an "IT issue"!

I am having trouble understanding this, if there were discrepancies in existing records wouldn't that mean that HMRC would have sent out incorrect coding notices in previous years then?

I wonder what the reason will be next week?

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"

HMRC's Hangover

HMRC have explained away the cause of the new PAYE IT system issuing wrong codes, it's a hangover!

An HMRC spokesperson is quoted by ZDNet UK:

"It's a hangover from the old system.

Before we had five or six systems sending out tax codes, but because of last year's upgrade we now have one. The new system is basically picking up duplicates from the old one and flushing them out.

The new system is working as it should, and we're confident that it will not happen again in future."

Seemingly the issue mainly affects those who have changed jobs in the last two years.

So that's alright 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"

HMRC Dies Another Day

Another day, another HMRC IT cock up.

Hot on the heels to the avalanche of incorrect coding notices being sent out by HMRC, comes news in the Yorkshire Post of another IT related blunder by HMRC.

Seemingly 186,115 injured armed forces veterans and war widows have received letters from HMRC telling them that they will be taxed at 20% on their war pensions (war pensions actually have a not taxed (NT) status).

The letters were sent in error, as a result of "computer error" (isn't it funny how computers are always blamed, yet it is a human that designs and programmes them?).

Will HMRC be correcting this error?

Yes...but only after the ex servicemen and their widows contact HMRC first (ie HMRC will not correct the error automatically).

All very well, if the veterans are fully fit and have nothing better to do with their lives!

However, there are those who are very unwell (mentally and physically), who will stand for them against HMRC?

Anyone receiving a war pension, who is concerned, can call the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency SPVA helpline on 0800 169 2277.

Given the fact that HMRC is snowed under with queries/complaints etc, and apparently grinding to a halt, how long will this take to rectify?

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"

Snowed Under

In keeping with the season, the FT reports that HMRC is snowed under with claims for tax repayments from companies.

Seemingly, businesses are waiting twice as long for corporation tax rebates from HMRC than they were a year ago.

Waiting times of a month (in comparison with 14 days last year) are now common.

The problem arises because the recession has increased the number of claims for rebates, which HMRC simply doesn't have the resources to handle in a timely manner.

Self assessment rebates for individuals are processed automatically. However, business rebates are processed manually.

Doubtless there will be those who argue (as they have done before) that if returns were input by businesses earlier in the year, the backlog would be lessened.

That is not unreasonable, up to a point. However, it should be remembered that the businesses are trying to drum up business and continue in operations; their time and energy are focused on that. HMRC's role is to make tax administration/payment etc simple, efficient and as least time consuming as possible.

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"