Anthony Thomas, President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT), is none too impressed with the flood of consultation documents that spew forth from the HMRC bunker.
Speaking recently at the president's reception at the Tate Modern, he was quoted by Accountancy Age as saying that it was:
"enormously frustrating... spending hours poring over consultation documents on what seems to be thousands of documents flooding out of HM Revenue & Customs... especially when on occasions the consultation is a complete waste of time."
For why are these consultations a waste of time?
Because the decisions had already been made by HMRC.
Mr Thomas called for a sensible approach in the future whereby there would be a meeting in advance with policy
advisers, to enable HMRC and professional bodies understand the issues.
He then went on to debunk the nonsense that there is a "special relationship" between HMRC and the professional bodies, calling it a "myth" (akin to that "relationship" between the UK and US governments).
This view may ruffle a few feathers over at the ICAEW, where Michael Izza (the CEO) claims that "we (the ICAEW) now have a partnership
with HMRC".
Tax does have to be taxing.
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That’s exactly the sort of consultation staff get as well. The phrase ‘consultation period’ has become government speak for “keep the plebs happy for a short while than carry on exactly as planned”.
ReplyDeleteI am genuinely surprised that anybody would expect any different…
Working Together has been a complete waste of time since 2003.
ReplyDelete@11:29
ReplyDeleteExactly!!!
HMRC has not listened to its staff in over a decade!
Why should accountants be any different?
HMRC Listen LOL . it's run by announcement not consultation
ReplyDeleteTrying to get HMRC to listen to anything is a waste of time, because all too often you end up dealing with people who not only have closed minds but are also just a little bit dim, not being able to understand that whilst tax is the centre of their world, 99%of the time Tax is actually not the centre of the commercial world.
ReplyDeleteThat is why the only real decision makers when nonsenses arise (as they do all too often after these one way "consultations") are the Treasury and or Politicians.
Last week at financial services seminar I heard a tale so astonishing that I thought it was a wind up until one of the people present confirmed it to be 100% accurate because they had been there.
At a high profile meeting attended by senior representatives of a number of major banks and senior revenue staff to discuss a particularly obscure but troubling issue that has been the subject of over a year of utter nonsense from HMRC, one of the HMRC staff present went to sleep.
Another simply got up at walked out without any form of excuse or comment.
IF HMRC staff can exhibit such crass, ignorant and plain stupid behaviour when supposedly discussing real world issues with major institutions, what hope do smaller taxpayers have?
It couldnt have been anyone of my grade as we wouldnt have been given the T&S to attend !.
ReplyDelete