Animal Farm

How refreshing to see that the upper echelons of HMRC are well read and cultured. It seems that they are fans of George Orwell, in particular his work "Animal Farm". In this story the animals take over the farm; the pigs then betray the other animals and impose a dictatorship, using the following slogan to justify their actions:

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Thus it appears to be with HMRC's rules wrt their online filing system. As from this year, anyone wishing to file a self-assessment tax return after October will have to do so online or face stiff penalties.

The fact that, given the recent spate of security blunders within HMRC, many people may well have doubts about the integrity of the online system is ignored by those in HMRC imposing this rule.

However, all is not lost for the humble taxpayer.

HMRC do have special security arrangements in place that ensure that "special" people are excluded from having to file their returns online. In fact, even if these "special people" wanted to file on line, they couldn't; as the security protocols prevent them from doing so.

Who are these "special people"?

None other than:

-MPs
-Celebrities
-The royal family

How reassuring to know that people such as Peter Hain, Pete Doherty and Prince Edward all receive special treatment. Unfortunately, the plebs such as you and I are not afforded such special treatment.

Now you might well ask why people such as MPs should be afforded such special treatment, and why they are subject to extra security protocols.

The answer is simple, HMRC do not have confidence in the security of their own online tax filing system.

Tax records contain NI numbers, bank account and salary details which are all valuable to fraudsters. HMRC do not want fraudsters obtaining the personal details of MPs, celebs and royals; they are not bothered if the rest of us have our details nicked.

This lack of care over our security details is evidenced by the fact that they lost the personal details of 25 million child benefit claimants.

The question that HMRC need to answer is this:

Do you have a system that can guarantee confidentiality for all taxpayers, or not?

It would seem, that by excluding "special people" from the online system, HMRC do not believe that they do have a secure system.

Notwithstanding this, HMRC claim that all taxpayers' details are secure.

They would, wouldn't they?

This claim is of course contradicted by the fact that they exclude MP's et al from online filing, and the fact that there have been numerous security blunders.

As Orwell said:

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

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