Tuesday 25 May 2010

Meltdown


The Independent reports that, predictably, the tax coding cock up has led to a surge of phone calls to HMRC which HMRC are simply not able to handle.

"Time after time readers report the frustration of trying to speak to someone at HMRC to put things right about their tax code.

'I spent three weeks trying to get through, beginning at 8 o'clock each morning and then at various times during the day,' says Robert Oliver of Essex. 'I finally managed to get through at 7:50 am on a Friday morning – 10 minutes before the line is officially open.'

'The system seems to be in meltdown with too many tax offices apparently dealing with people's tax affairs at random. resulting in a true cock-up and a lot of worry for people like myself,' says R J Patterson of Cumbria
."

The problems will become worse.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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9 comments:

  1. The problems will become worse with the freeze on civil service recruitment by Osborne.
    If someone leaves they won't be replaced. And the muppets left will have to carry the load left behind plus the work they have already.
    Forget about getting through on the phone.

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  2. Muppets? Mate if employers and individuals took more responsibility for their taxes it wouldn't be half as bad.

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  3. Muppets? If the people employed by private companies ie accnt asd book keepers knew what they were doing the "Customer Service" contact centres wouldnt be so inundated with other calls and we could deal with this mess ... caused by our PRIVATE SECTOR IT supplier. But people on here would rather blame the civil servants who have a very limited right to complain back due to impartiality etc

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  4. Muppets? Mate if employers and individuals took more responsibility for their taxes it wouldn't be half as bad.

    So it is the employers and individuals who sent out all the wrong codes was it, twat.


    Muppets? If the people employed by private companies ie accnt asd book keepers knew what they were doing the "Customer Service" contact centres wouldnt be so inundated with other calls and we could deal with this mess

    We only have to call when you cock things up or your online systems fail to work.

    PRIVATE SECTOR IT supplier

    It was your bosses who designed and signed off the system, twat.

    But people on here would rather blame the civil servants who have a very limited right to complain back due to impartiality etc

    Most people on here do not blame the people on the actual telephones, just the twats in charge.

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  5. @ 22.12 actually yes - employers do have to shoulder responsibility for some of the coding issues. You see the problem is that duplicate records are being set up because of incorrect payroll reference numbers supplied by the employer when the employment started. Employers tend to abbreviate the payroll reference number upon start and include the full reference on the end of year p14, so starting references 1234 quite often become 00001234 or 00-1234-1A at the end of the year. The system has been designed to review end of year forms and if we receive something for which no employment is set up it will set it up automatically, a different payroll reference would be treated as a different employment and so lots of duplicates have been created this year. Before you so wittily retort with ' What a crap design, twat' bear in mind that the feature was added because lots of employers do not let HMRC know when people start work for them but do send en of year p14s so the feature was needed to pick up at the end of the year any employments which HMRC were not already aware of.
    Whilst individuals may not have played any part in the coding problem mentioned above my earlier comment was more general. The bulk of individuals do not pay any attention to their tax affairs, do not review information that is sent out and do not inform HMRC of any relevant changes. If people were more proactive, although HMRC may mistakes, these would be identified sooner and corrected before they become too extreme.
    Oh and 22.12, kudos on the use of the word twat, I like how you fit it into every other sentence. You shoul consider public speaking, you'd be awesome.

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  6. 04:36
    As a softwaare developer I accept your comments regarding the complexity of your system and the problems it has faced. However I think it became clear a while back that the new system had not been fully tested. This appeared to be a large part of the problem and that is not the tax payers fault.

    You shoul consider public speaking, you'd be awesome.

    I do not have time for public speaking, I am too busy testing my work, getting my tax return done correctly and then chasing up HMRC because their online system screwed up again.

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  7. If the tax system wasn't so complex, perhaps the odd mix up of codes or loss of data wouldn't matter so much?

    If HMRC didn't issue such draconian sanctions for not adhering to strict complex rules, perhaps people wouldn't panic and inundate the helplines?

    If tax was indeed simple, then any bean counting moron could adhere to the requirements. However, it is not simple so if hmrc do make a mistake, they get overwhelmed. But hey, its ok for them to make mistakes right?

    HMRC:- "Do as I say, not as I do"

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  8. To the person who resigned to call HMRC staff 'twats'.

    Why should HMRC staff on 16-20K have to become system testers/fixers/punchbags for one of the WORST IT projects of this century.

    Before anyone comes back with the pathetic response that the public sector wouldn't exist without the private sector. This IT project was implemented/handled and signed off by an executive board that had had MANY years of experience in the same PRIVATE sector and only ONE board member who has worked his way up from the minimum grade (current starting salary approx 11k).

    Don't you DARE blame all of this on the incompetence of HMRC staff. Many of us are reduced to tears by the incompetence of the current board of HMRC and all of the insider dealing going on.

    ReplyDelete
  9. 26 May 2010 21:15

    As the poster who used the 'twat' word I can assure you I was not referring to the staff as a whole.

    Not only am I a self employed member of the public who has wasted a lot of time recently trying to deal with HMRC's broken online system, but I am also the partner of someone who picks up the phone in an HMRC call center.

    I can assure you I have seen the tears on a regular basis.

    I just find it frustrating when anybody has to gaul to try and blame HMRC's problems on anyone other than the people running HMRC.

    ReplyDelete