Simple!

Errmm...here is a story as per Tax-News.com.

Seemingly a 13 year project undertaken by HMRC to rewrite tax law (with the objective of making it easier to understand) is soon to come to a close.

Well, Timms is impressed and notes that "direct tax legislation is now far more accessible and easier to apply..."

What say you "Joe Public"?

After 13 years of activity, the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Tax Law Rewrite Project is to end next year, the Treasury has announced.

Launched in 1996, the project is responsible for rewriting direct tax legislation, to make it clearer and easier for users to understand.

“The Tax Law Rewrite project has played a key role in modernising our tax legislation and its work has rightly been widely praised,” commented Stephen Timms, Financial Secretary to the Treasury. "The mainstream direct tax legislation is now far more accessible and easier to apply than the legislation that went before and when the project’s next two Bills are enacted, the time will be right to bring this work to an end.

Since its creation, the project has resulted in 6 pieces of legislation and tax regulations being rewritten, including: The Capital Allowances Act 2001; The Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003; The Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005; The Income Tax Act 2007; The Corporation Tax Act 2009; and The PAYE Regulations.

The main goals of the project are to reproduce tax legislation in a clearer, more logical tax structure with use of plain language while attempting not to alter the main tax policies.

A high level Steering Committee, chaired by Lord Newton of Braintree, oversees the project. A Consultative Committee, consisting of representative bodies and other interested parties, also meets on a regular basis to consider issues and the draft legislation in more detail.

“With the completion of the project’s work, legislation for the mainstream direct taxes will now be much easier for users to navigate and understand,” Timms continued. “This is a very significant achievement and I am grateful for the contribution of everyone involved in it.”

The second Corporation Tax Bill and the Taxation (International and Other Provisions) Bill, which rewrites provisions that deal mainly with international taxation issues, is expected to be enacted in the spring of 2010.

Work currently on hand will be completed by the end of 2009/10, with only minor amendments to existing rewritten legislation to be undertaken after that, the Treasury informed.

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"

Computer Glitch Kills Tax Credit Claimant

HMRC have found a neat way to reduce the amount of money paid out via tax credits. They kill people off, not physically but by wiping them from their computer records.

Carol Buchanan, a part time cleaner, found this to her cost recently when she was told at her local Post Office that she couldn't collect her working tax credit because she was dead.

Ms Buchanan was also told that no emergency credit payment could be made, because she had already been wiped off the computer system.

HMRC have yet to give her a timescale to resolve this cock up, and it is likely that she will be without her tax credit for several weeks.

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"

Absurd

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) have issued a press release stating that it is absurd that HMRC impose compulsory online filing during a recession.

It notes that HMRC plans to adopt Inline XBRL (or iXBRL) would be the first large-scale iXBRL implementation worldwide. Given HMRC's rather rickety IT systems, how wise is this without thorough embedding and testing?

Governments and their departments/organs of state don't "do IT"...PERIOD!

News Release – ICAS: Imposing compulsory online tax filing during a recession is absurd

It is absurd to require businesses struggling during a recession to introduce a mandatory online tax filing system. That's the view of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) in response to an HMRC consultation on draft laws requiring all companies to submit statutory accounts and tax computations in a revolutionary new data format (XBRL) by April 2011.

HMRC urged to reconsider its plans

ICAS objects to the additional burdens, costs and risks of this during the current recession – when many businesses are struggling to survive and should be concentrating their management expertise on the much more pressing and important task of maintaining productivity and employment.

Donald Drysdale, Assistant Director at ICAS and a Chartered IT Professional, said:

"In his Review of HMRC Online Services, Lord Carter of Coles recommended the use of XBRL, but emphasised that the new standard should not be imposed until it had been implemented and had bedded down. He also noted that other improvements would be needed before the service would meet the needs of tax agents.

Many companies won't be ready for this. It is absurd to require businesses struggling during a recession to introduce this.

XBRL has been used relatively sparingly to date, and HMRC plans to adopt Inline XBRL (or iXBRL) would be the first large-scale iXBRL implementation worldwide, so the technology certainly hasn't been adequately tried, tested and proven to be reliable.
It falls far short of Lord Carter's criteria."

ICAS has been exploring this topic with HMRC for more than two years. The Institute was instrumental in establishing tripartite discussions among Government, the tax profession and software vendors, but now reports widespread concerns that software solutions for preparing iXBRL-based statutory accounts will not be available in time.

Drysdale added:

"It's misguided and disproportionate to mandate iXBRL-based online filing by all companies as early as April 2011.

We've urged HMRC to reconsider its plans in the light of the relatively immature market position of XBRL, and we've asked that Ministers shift to a gradual voluntary adoption of iXBRL filing until the new software for tax and accounts preparation
has been properly tried and tested."

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"

Consultation

HMRC published their Consultation Responses Document to its draft Charter last week.

The consultation attracted an unprecedented 1900 responses:

– 124 online,
- 1748 youth (aged 15-24 years), and
- 54 written responses from representative bodies, businesses and individuals (including HMRC staff).

I am surprised that 15 year olds have even the slightest understanding/interest in matters concerning taxation.

Two phrases:

- "pursue relentlessly", and
- "bend or break the rules"

caused some angst amongst the respondents. HMRC have modified them accordingly:

"3.31 The phrase 'pursue relentlessly' is part of the HMRC Vision. The language is appropriate for internal use and it accurately reflects our role. Given the concerns expressed we have changed the term to 'tackle' in the Charter, however the sentiment remains the same.

3.32 The phrase 'bend or break the rules' is also part of the HMRC Vision. Internally HMRC staff understand the difference between evasion and avoidance.

We have amended the wording in the Charter to make a clearer distinction for an external audience between 'deliberately break the rules' and those who 'bend the rules' And the additional notes make more clear our approach to tax avoidance as compared to tax evasion."

Given this change in the Charter is not also appropriate that the HMRC Vision is also changed to reflect this, lest it cause confusion internally?

I would also note that the revised version now states:

"distinguish between legitimately trying to pay the lowest amount and bending the rules through tax avoidance".

Tax avoidance is legitimate, the above implies that it is illegal.

BTW am I seeing things, or is that Barack Obama in the top right hand picture on page one?;)

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"

Is This a Record?

Can anyone beat this 13 month delay in receiving a response from HMRC?

"Ken - many weeks for a reply is very optimistic!

I sent in a refund claim for my wife when she left her job and we got a reply 13 months later and an apology for the delay due to the amount of post! Dreadful service:(

Accountants Hampshire
Hampshire Accountants"

There's a special T shirt up for grabs if you can beat it.


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"

£1.6BN Cock Up

It seems that approximately 4.5M taxpayers are owed around £1.6BN by HMRC, as a result of a tax coding error.

The National Audit Office estimates that in addition to the 4.5M who have overpaid tax, there are around 1.5M who have underpaid around £400M of tax.

Good luck to those who try to reclaim their overpayments, this may well take some time as written communications sent to HMRC tend to take many weeks to action.

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"

Power Corrupts - ID Cards and HMRC

The Guardian highlights the dangers of government departments, such as HMRC, using the data gathered via the ID card scheme to go on fishing trips (outwith genuine enquiries, wrt serious criminal offences being investigated).

"The controversial ID card system, which has been amended over the last few weeks, may well be used by various government departments to track individual spending habits and assets.

In a relatively unpublicised move the UK government has given the Treasury department, and specifically tax inspectors, the ability to access the ID card database, which shows big-ticket items acquired by individuals in the UK.

It is believed that by using information on the database, the various tax authorities could ultimately create an audit trail of spending and assets for each individual in the UK."

It seems that the Home Orifice is reluctant to comment on this issue.

Using HMRC as a government spy will further undermine its reputation and indeed its effectiveness (as time will be wasted by HMRC staff who end up spending their time fishing in "uninteresting backwaters", rather than proactively targeting those who are known to be defrauding the tax system).

It goes without saying that the civil liberties implications of this are somewhat "worrying", to say the least.

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"

Pay Freeze?

Stephen Timms, the Treasury Minister, has said the government will soon make a pay decision wrt HMRC staff.

He has not ruled out a freeze on salary levels.

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"

Teething Troubles

HMRC is to review its debt collector pilot scheme, after concerns were raised that many of the agents and revenue staff are following up on tax demands that were issued by mistake.

"Spurious" tax debt can arise when, eg, penalty notices for non filing of tax returns are issued to companies that are no longer trading or who do not employ any staff.

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"

Some Signs of Encouragement

Stephen Timms, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said that the results of the recent HMRC staff survey showed "some signs of encouragement".

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"

Downward Trend

My thanks to Serious Cat for going to the trouble of looking up the results of previous HMRC staff surveys, and comparing the results (where possible) with the most recent one.

As can be seen, the trend has been in the downward direction. The question that springs to mind is why the CEO of HMRC expresses "huge disappointment" at this year's results, when the trend has been downward for quite some time?

Is she so really out of touch with how staff feel about HMRC?

Given this downward trend, what really can be done to reverse it; given that the government is broke, and that many of those "running" HMRC have been in situ during this period and are therefore presumably "responsible" for the lousy staff morale?

As Serious Cat says:

"This is the HMRC that Gordon Brown has created.

This will be his legacy."

Serious Cat's comment:

"I present, for information purposes, a few figures selected from the last 6 staff surveys.

As previously stated, many of the questions/statements are different in each survey, but a handful are the same and capable of comparison.

(Please note, there were two staff surveys conducted in 2005, one in May and another in November.)

Statement 1: I am proud to work for HMRC

Positive
05/2005 - 43%
11/2005 - 40%
2006 - 36%
2007 - 39%
2008 - 33%
2009 - 25%
Down 18%

Neutral
05/2005 - 36%
11/2005 - 36%
2006 - 34%
2007 - 38%
2008 - 36%
2009 - 38%
Up 2%

Negative
05/2005 - 21%
11/2005 - 24%
2006 - 30%
2007 - 23%
2008 - 31%
2009 - 37%
Up 16%

Statement 2: I would recommend HMRC as a good place to work

Positive
05/2005 - Question not asked
11/2005 - 37%
2006 - 28%
2007 - 30%
2008 - 25%
2009 - 17%
Down 20%

Neutral
05/2005 - Question not asked
11/2005 - 28%
2006 - 25%
2007 - 26%
2008 - 24%
2009 - 31%
Up 3%

Negative
05/2005 - Question not asked
11/2005 - 36%
2006 - 46%
2007 - 44%
2008 - 50%
2009 - 52%
Up 16%

Statement 3: I think HMRC is well managed

Positive
05/2005 - 26%
11/2005 - 22%
2006 - 20%
2007 - 19%
2008 - 15%
2009 - 11%
Down 15%

Neutral
05/2005 - 38%
11/2005 - 38%
2006 - 35%
2007 - 28%
2008 - 27%
2009 - 25%
Down 13%

Negative
05/2005 - 36%
11/2005 - 40%
2006 - 46%
2007 - 52%
2008 - 58%
2009 - 64%
Up 28%

I think these figures speak for themselves. In 2005, only a quarter of staff felt that HMRC was well managed. In just 4 years, that figure has dropped to a tenth. Nearly 90% of staff are unable to have confidence in HMRC's management.

Since the 2009 survey and its appalling results, what has the reaction of senior management been? Er, not much that I can see.

Despite these atrocious - nay, scandalous - figures, I actually have a small measure of sympathy for senior managers. They are faced with a department that simply doesn't have the budget to revolutionise itself and, thanks to Brown, Darling et al, that budget is being slashed year on year.

We are actually in the position whereby if a taxpayer e-mails us documentation in Word 2007 format, we can't read it. Why? Our version of Word is too old. Can we upgrade to 2007? No, there isn't enough money in our budget.

This is the HMRC that Gordon Brown has created.

This will be his legacy."

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"

Power Corrupts - Specialist Information Powers

HMRC is asking for more powers to force accountants to reveal the names and addresses of clients who use schemes to avoid paying the 50% rate of income tax.

The "new specialist information powers" would enable HMRC to demand that accountants release the details of all individuals using such schemes, when the new rate comes into force in April next year.

Given that tax avoidance is legal, why does HMRC need to know who is avoiding tax?

Surely it only needs to know the nature of the schemes being used by accountants, in order to validate their legality?

Tax avoidance schemes have been around for yonks, why now does HMRC feel the need to increase its snooping powers?

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"

Consultation

FYI, from the HMRC site:

Two consultation documents on modernising HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) powers, deterrents and safeguards are published today.

The first paper contains proposals for modernising and improving HMRC's information powers, and accompanying safeguards, in two key areas:

- bulk information powers – these allow HMRC to gather specific pieces of information about a group of taxpayers for use in risk analysis e.g. interest paid by banks without deducting tax; and

- specialist unnamed taxpayer powers – these allow HMRC, in certain tightly-described circumstances, to ask for information from a third party about an unnamed taxpayer, for example, to check a transaction where it’s not clear who the relevant taxpayer is.

The second consultation looks at ideas for a new and modernised excise checking framework, as well as ways of improving excise administrative procedures, in order to reduce admin burdens for business. The proposals cover excise duties on alcohol, tobacco, energy products, gambling duties and air passenger duty.

The consultations follow the introduction in April 2009 of a new compliance checking framework for a range of taxes, which brought in a new set of rules and safeguards for HMRC inspections, visits and enquiries across a range of taxes.

The consultation documents, and accompanying Impact Assessments, are available on the HMRC website at www.hmrc.gov.uk/consultations (click the "current consultations" option).

The deadline for submitting comments is 1 October 2009.

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"

Morale Collapses

A recent staff survey of 53,000 members of HMRC, conducted by HMRC, shows that staff morale has collapsed even further.

Even HMRC's CEO, Lesley Strathie, has described the fact that out of 11 government departments HMRC is ranked last as being "hugely disappointing".

The findings show that only 25% of those surveyed are proud to work for HMRC, and a mere 14% are "highly motivated".

In 2007 a similar survey showed that 19% felt that "senior management provide effective leadership", that figure is now a pitiful 11%.

Lesley Strathie is quoted in Accountancy Age:

"As a department we cannot afford to ignore these results and my senior management team and I take them extremely seriously".

The question is, what will the board do to improve the situation?

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"

Tax Investigation Insurance - Taxwise

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX & 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. The Policy has been designed to combat the costs and inequities of undergoing the ever-increasing number of HM Revenue & Customs random investigations.

Taxwise Coverage

The standard cover provides representation costs by registered accounting practices on your behalf, for up to £75,000 in any one claim, arising from:

-Income Tax Self Assessment full enquiries
-Income Tax Self Assessment aspect enquiries (if this option is selected)
-Corporation Tax Self Assessment full enquiries
-Corporation Tax Self Assessment aspect enquiries (if this option is selected)
-H M Revenue & Customs VAT disputes
-Employer compliance disputes PAYE/ P11D/ NIC
-IR35 disputes
-Now covers business's with an annual turnover of up to £10 million

To find out more, please use this link Taxwise

Tax does have to be taxing.

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"

Overtime Ban

HMRC staff will be implementing an overtime ban this week, in response to job cuts.

The Public and Commercial Services union claim that HMRC is having to rely on routine overtime, as well as temporary staff, after cutting almost 19,000 jobs over the past three years.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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"

Cost Savings

Capgemini performs outsourced work for HMRC on its Aspire contract, at its Telford site in the Midlands.

The company has a clause in its contract that stipulates that all work must be done in the UK.

No doubt Gordon "British jobs for British people" Brown would be happy with that. However, the Mail reports that Capgemini is in fact importing workers from Asia whose contracts are only for a few years.

I wonder if the savings that Capgemini are doubtless making from this scheme are being passed on to HMRC and the taxpayer?

Tax does have to be taxing.

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"

What a Ranker!

Google "HMRC" and you will see that this site (as at time of writing) is now number 3 out of over 1,000,000.

The official HMRC site takes up the top 2 slots.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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"

Power Corrupts - PC Seizure

Source Accounting Web:

"We are currently acting for a client who had her computer, mobile phone and fax machine removed by officers of HMRC in February 2009 during a 'routine' visit. This is contrary to HMRC powers which states that they are allowed to download material from the computer but not physically remove it. The computer was returned after our representation albeit in a damaged state. HMRC, of course, deny responsibility. HMRC also uplifted our client's records which have not been returned nor have copies been received despite our request for copies which was made in March 2009.

We made a formal complaint to HMRC Complaints Unit in May 2009 and received an acknowledgement to say we would have a reply within 15 days.

We have just received a further letter, 23 June 2009, from the HMRC Complaints Team which states 'unfortunately I am unable to give you a date by which you can expect a response as we have a number of cases awaiting investigation at the moment and it is difficult to say how long it will be before a caseworker will be allocated your case'.

I don't think I need to say any more about HMRC powers!

Malcolm McFarlin"

HMRC have a forum to monitor the implementation of their new powers. However, it is chaired by Dave Hartnett and has on it members of HMRC (albeit not in the majority).

How can this forum act independently, and objectively, if it is populated with members of HMRC?

Tax does have to be taxing.

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

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