Tuesday 1 February 2011

Putting The Boot In



The Commons Public Accounts Committee has given HMRC a thorough kicking wrt the PAYE reconciliation issues of 2008/09, 2007/08 and earlier years.

Accountancy Age reports that the committee Chairman, Margaret Hodge, said that HMRC "failed in its duty to process PAYE accurately and on time" and deliberately left taxpayers in the dark until last September because of problems with its NI and PAYE Service (NPS) computer system.

Hodge said:

"HMRC's mismanagement has caused uncertainty and worry to taxpayers and inequity in the system. We now look to the department to be able to demonstrate clearly by the end of 2011 that NPS can process PAYE promptly, accurately and efficiently. Taxpayer confidence must be restored."

The committee noted that the implementation of NPS was "flawed", and that there are "data quality issues" that had disrupted the issue of tax codes for 2010/11.

Seemingly HMRC began issuing 25 million coding notices for 2010/11, without first establishing why the number was massively in excess of its forecast.

As I have noted before, the root cause of HMRC's problems stems from the botched merger (ordered by Brown), the interference of politicians, the complexity of the tax system (legislated by politicians) and the ineptitude of senior managers (appointed by politicians).

The committee is right to draw attention to the problems, and is right to blame HMRC for specific issues. However, the underlying cause of HMRC's problems (and ultimately their resolution) lies in the hands of the politicians.

That of course means the problems will never be solved, as our political establishment simply isn't up to the job.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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11 comments:

  1. A similar situation exists wrt the ID Card fiasco - have a look on the website Computer Weekly - editor's blog item for 31/01/11

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  2. I'm impressed. Highlighting the role of politicians with their constant reorganisations and "efficiency" drives. Pity the PAC didn't have the self awareness to reach the same conclusions.

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  3. Politicians are not "self aware", in the conventional sense, and are incapable of admitting to errors.

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  4. It's all well and good criticising HMRC, we can all do that (and probably do).

    The question is what is going to be done about it?

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  5. Start by sacking Strathe and Hairnet without compensation and confiscating their pensions.

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  6. Anon @ 13:19... I agree. Then get rid of the rest of the management, get rid of the whiteboards, get rid of the performance league tables, get rid of the spreadsheets... then, and only then, will the staff actually be free to do their jobs without being micro-managed and bullied into submission.

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  7. "We now look to the department to be able to demonstrate clearly by the end of 2011 that NPS can process PAYE promptly, accurately and efficiently. Taxpayer confidence must be restored."

    Highly unlikely considering they want another 13,000 staff to get out and the admin budget cut by nearly 40%

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  8. "Highly unlikely considering they want another 13,000 staff to get out and the admin budget cut by nearly 40%"

    So we can look forward to the fact that although we will still get the same shit service at least it will be costing us all less.

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  9. "So we can look forward to the fact that although we will still get the same shit service at least it will be costing us all less."

    Thats incredibly naive. It'll cost more and the service will get worse. Even more so when they start outsourcing to make up for the fact that they can't cope.

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  10. Tomorrow sees the announcement of the first lucky few SCS people who will lead HMRC into the brave new world.

    Yes the overpaid and the under-talented who lead HMRC have been going through a fancy game of Musical Chairs to see who will lead, who will stay and who'se going for the chop.

    These results are at ExCom level and include Dame Widow Twankey and Dave 'am I paying for this?' Hartnett. Two guesses to see if they lose thier jobs.

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  11. I honestly do not think that HMRC, as a department, is salvageable. Everything Strathie and Hartnett touch turns to shit (I can’t include Clasper in that comment as he’s never done anything). Perhaps I could apply for his job…

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