Tuesday 8 June 2010

HMRC Loses Track of Data


This Is Money reports that HMRC have told Sipp provider AJ Bell that it could not divulge any reliable statistics on pensions:

"Pension scheme services is experiencing systems difficulties in collating intermediate level of detail in some areas. It is now clear that these problems may be more widespread.

IT is currently investigating this but it means the data we have already provided should not be relied upon. Until we are comfortable the data we produce is correct, it would be wrong to provide further summaries which may present a misleading and unreliable picture.
."

It is hardly surprising that this situation has arisen, the tax and pensions rules in the UK are "insanely" complex. A cynic might conclude that they were made deliberately complex, in order to prevent ordinary people from understanding them.

Will the new government do something about this?

Aside from some window dressing, I doubt that there will be any major changes that will simplify the system (forthcoming changes to pension and CGT rules may well complicate it further).

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"

5 comments:

  1. While the IT guys are looking at this maybe they could fix the online SA system as well as they only have about 7 months until I need it and it has been buggered for about three mnonths already.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why don't you file it now then? Worked fine for me. I'd rather not be one of those who wait until 20:00 30/01/11 and then wind up being late.
    Also the name of the thread is slightly misleading isn't it? Not realling 'Missing Data' as the title suggests.

    ReplyDelete
  3. 8 June 2010 22:06, Sorry, I mislead you I do not need it again until next April (I just cannot count months today for some reason). I have already filed my return for last year.

    The problem with the SA system is that if you need to amend the return which I did on this occassion, once you amend it and log out you cannot log back in again. Having looked into the problem it turned out that the problem was known about since February and still exists. I guess with HMRC's record on IT projects I will be back to a paper submission next year.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think the title is correct.

    It does not intimate that data has actually been lost but just to the fact that HMRC does not think it is correct.

    Credit where credit is due, they are probably right on this one.

    ReplyDelete