HMRC Is Unhelpful

A study by R3 (the insolvency trade body) has found that 54% of insolvency practitioners (IPs) think that HMRC makes it harder to rescue businesses rather than wind them up.

The survey also highlighted that 71% of IPs believe that HMRC has made the insolvency process harder to manage over the past few years, with just 10% believing that HMRC was ‘helpful' when it comes to business rescue.

IPs estimate that a third of the estimated 480,000 letters and forms they send to HMRC for a year's worth of cases are duplicates of lost or ignored post, or are copies of letters that have to be sent to multiple HMRC addresses. This is the equivalent to approximately 160,000 excess forms and letters for a year's worth of new cases.

Some 54% of insolvency practitioners reported that they had to wait over three months for clearance from HMRC to close their last case, while 25% waited between six months and a year.

43% said their requests for information from HMRC - to which they were entitled as office holders - were rejected.

Phillip Sykes, president of R3, is quoted by AccountancyAge:

"The government, as a creditor, can do much more to help promote a business rescue culture. At the moment, it can be responsible for lengthy paperwork delays, and creates extra costs for itself, the insolvency profession and other creditors, while its lack of commercial decision-making capabilities undermines business and job rescue proposals.

The insolvency profession believes the government's behaviour as a creditor makes it harder to manage insolvency processes and rescue businesses. It's one of the creditors the insolvency profession looks forward to working with the least - which is a problem given how often the government is a creditor in insolvencies."

What Mr Sykes doesn't grasp is that the government does not give a flying fig for businesses, unless they are multinationals giving the government a large scale discounted contract or providing jobs for ex government ministers.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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