Jim Harra, HMRC’s chief executive, told the Treasury select committee this week that it was “inevitable” billions of pounds of Covid-19 support would be lost to fraud and error, and there was nothing the agency would have done differently during the pandemic.
Jim Harra told MPs the tax inspectorate hadn’t given up chasing down the £5.8bn it had identified as incorrectly allocated, but the number of small claims that added up to huge sums made reclaiming the money almost impossible.
“We expect to recover about £1bn.
It’s not realistic of me to expect us to reclaim all of it.”
Harra said HMRC’s systems relied on self assessment, with little third-party checks carried out.
“We were up against a potential chilling effect on employment if we had not acted fast,” he said.
Difficult decisions were made about the controls introduced. People we would want to help would otherwise have been excluded.”
Asked if there was anything his office could have done differently, Harra said “no”.
“Error and fraud are not acceptable, but were inevitable.
If we had the luxury of more time, we could have collected more third-party data to verify what we were told, but it wasn't realistic to do much more.”
Committee chairman Mel Stride said it was “troubling” that HMRC appeared to accept the loss of billions of pounds of public money without any admission it could have done better.
On the plus side, apparently HMRC is now back to its pre pandemic level of "customer service"!
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"there was nothing the agency would have done differently during the pandemic"
ReplyDelete"We expect to recover about £1bn." (of £5.8bn)
"It’s not realistic of me to expect us to reclaim all of it.”
"Asked if there was anything his office could have done differently, Harra said “no”."
Wow! Just wow!
The arrogance of these people is breath taking!
With overall taxes at a 70-year high, mainly due to the covid overreaction, there needs to be a higher degree of accountability.
Jim Harra's comments would have been very reassuring to fraudsters.
ReplyDeleteWhose side are HMRC on? The criminals or the law abiding? The chancers or the hard working?
As a former, long-serving HMRC officer, who fell victim to their violence and bullying, and witnessed management actively cover up evidence of staff misconduct and lawbreaking, HMRC's attitude to fraud is no surprise.
Have you given your evidence to the police yet?
DeleteDo let us all know how it's going.
If these useless HMRC people can't do better on fraud > SACK THEM
ReplyDeleteWishful thinking. In reality "useless people" at HMRC get promoted. And the more toxic those persons are, the higher they climb. It explains a lot about the unpleasant, toxic working atmosphere at HMRC. The working environment has got so bad that its seemingly affecting recruitment. HMRC now has a Recruitment Marketing Team whose job is to make sure desperate job seekers know nothing about the infamous HMRC bullying culture and put a positive spin on the department. Back in reality, a quick Google of "HMRC staff bullying culture" or "Laura Whyte report" demonstrates that HMRC is not a safe place for sane people to work.
DeleteThe money wasted on non-jobs in public sector organisations like HMRC, such as their "Recruitment Marketing Team", is one of the reasons why tax has increased so much over recent decades.
DeleteUnfortunately, those with a socialist mindset justify this spending as being 'value for money' and as being for the 'public good'.
However, for those of us at HMRC with experience of our careers and health being destroyed by staff bullying and corruption, we can see that these 'Marketing' teams are nothing less than propagandists - their full-time role promoting HMRC only exists because there is so much to hide within the rotten organisation. It could be said that they play an important role in allowing evil behaviour to continue unchecked within HMRC.
Sack them from these immoral jobs and save the taxpayer money = a win win situation.
At least £4.8 billion of taxpayers' money placed in the hands criminals by the failures at HMRC.
ReplyDeleteHas Jim Harra or anyone else on the gravy train considered their position? If not, why not?
Why should the public put up with an ever-increasing tax burden when, as the government and the parasites at HMRC always prove, the more you give them, the more they waste !!!
Yeah, tax is necessary for a functioning society and democracy, BUT it should always be as LOW as possible, because tax is legalised theft >> that's something HMRC and its staff should try to remember . How do these people sleep at night ?
ReplyDeleteHMRC should be reminded daily of the sacrifices the self employed make to generate the money they are forced to hand over to them. Would that better focus their tiny minds before readily handing over £billions of OUR money to criminals !!! These wasteful scumbags make me sick .
You do realise you are insulting all those officers that conduct criminal investigations into fraud? They all knew that many criminals would exploit this and knew it would happen.
DeleteWorking long hours and then having to explain how frauds such as MTIC and Contra Trading in terms a jury will understand is not easy. Yet you write everyone off as though they devised it.
You are despicable.
The arrogance of these people really is breath taking - see above.
DeleteThe despicable people are the fraudsters and the HMRC staff who do not do their jobs properly, not those calling it out for what is is !!!
@19.33 So what experience do you have of investigating fraud? What makes you think that HMRC staff don't do their job. Please state what industry you are in so everyone can berate the number of tax dodgers in that.
DeleteThe reason that fraud has occurred is that the government had no emergency contingency plans for an event like the pandemic. Instead they were forced to introduce poorly drafted, rushed legislation with insufficient safeguards.
ReplyDeleteThe government has an 80 seat majority. If people don't like it then they know what to do at the next election.
What sacrifices do the self-employed make? They are not a charitable organisation. They become self-employed to make more money for themselves. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but don't complain when things get tight.
There is no such thing as legalised theft. That is an oxymoron.
And, though you may find this hard to grasp, I am sure HMRC staff would quite like to pay less tax as well.
Why would HMRC staff sleep badly for implementing the policy of a democratically elected government? Unless you're not comfortable with the concept of democracy?
Whining, self-pitying, alt-right scumbags make me sick.
I think many self employed came unstuck during the furlough period. Under declaring their income and profit for a few years came to bite them in the arse when they needed help. Do I feel sorry for them? As much as I do for any thief.
DeleteThe bad publicity for HMRC continues: the PAC report is really quite scathing.
ReplyDeleteWhile recognising the pace at which Covid support schemes were rolled out, the report says the knock-on effect has been "poor performance, delays and backlogs in key aspects of tax administration".
In relation to the level of Covid fraud, Meg Hillier MP said, "What signal does it send when HMRC rolls over on billions of pounds of fraud and error directly related to Covid support packages? With the current parlous state of the public finances we can ill-afford to be so cavalier over so much taxpayers' money".
Speaking as a former HMRC staff member who single handily collected and raised millions of pounds for the exchequer but who was raped out of the organisation, figuratively speaking, by significant bullying and staff misconduct, their 'cavalier attitude' to fraud is no surprise. Leadership from top to bottom is worse than terrible. Hence the toxic bullying culture will never be confronted; nor will poor performers be dealt with.
Those at the very top are only concerned about their careers prospects within the senior civil service. And those near the bottom of the food chain spend all day pinging emails to each other and do little in the way of productive work.
It leaves only around 20% of staff - predominately at Bands O and HO (but some others) - who are dedicated to closing the tax gap and pursuing irregularities. The hard truth is that the majority of staff are not committed to the core purpose of HMRC.
It's a rotten organisation: their whole culture and ways of working must be overhauled. In the unlikely event they ever get a true leader to run HMRC, the first job should be to root out the corrupt, the bullies and the poor performers. Wishful thinking.
I imagine 99% of your former colleagues don't like the way you belittle every single grade, and state 80% of them are useless. You also have a very high opinion of yourself.
DeleteI think you will find that tax laws were used in collecting the tax you did. And please explain how you raised millions extra? We all know how yield figures aren't worth the paper they are written on, so assume you have proof it was collected ? And did you make up your own tax laws? I bet your "customers" loved you too for you officious attitude.
Probably not as much as the police and solicitors would be if you ever took your complaint to them. Despite many,many requests for you to furnish details of what the police and/or solicitors have told you, you remain silent.
And now you even get the word "rape" into your pointless rant.Really necessary?
How do I know the money was collected? I spent years working in the field collecting payments and instigating enforcement action.
DeleteAs regards assessments raised when in Local Compliance, how do I know the real money was collected? Communication with colleagues.
I had excellent working relationships with taxpayers. As a local said to me only a few months ago - amongst a sea of incompetents and ar*seholes "you were firm but fair and always professional and easy to talk with".
As for the phrase "raped out of the organisation", when describing the horrific, monstrous behaviour I endured, it is completely necessary. Do you seriously think I care about what the dishonest, lowlife, cry bullies at HMRC who covered up lawbreaking, misconduct and abuse think?
I agree with at 15:01 - the word is not "completely necessary" and is utterly offensive to those women, and men, who have been victims to that foulest of crimes. That you are unable to see that says so much about you and your obsessive behaviour.
DeleteAt this point I suppose I should be asking how the police investigation into the crimes against you is going. But if course there is no investigation. There is no investigation because you have given the police no evidence. You have given them no evidence because it does not exist.
I disagree with 15:01 and 22:19 (the same person).
DeleteIf you had been subjected to the most vile mental rape imaginable by HMRC bullies - a phrase first used by a counsellor to describe these scumbags' behaviour - you would understand the use of the word - by the way, for the hard of thinking, it in no way undermines those who have been a victim to that foulest of crimes.
Your obsession with how we progress the outstanding matters with the crooks at HMRC is disturbing but not surprising...sad, little troll.
We are not the same person.
DeleteContinuing to ask you reasonable questions (which you refuse to answer) does not make me a 'troll'.
So come on then.......tell us what you're doing with the evidence. It's been years now that you've had us all in suspense. Just a hint maybe? A teeny, weeny little hint. Come on......you can do it, surely.
And finally, your failure to understand how inappropriate and offensive your use of the 'r' word is in this context is disturbing but not surprising......sad little liar.
"We are not the same person" Ah, alright.
DeleteWe are getting help to progress these matters and raise public awareness of the unlawful, immoral and dishonest manner in which HMRC management raped me out of the organisation.
I encourage you to also get help for your obsessive trolling.
You're certainly taking your time in progressing these matters. Three words - 'statute of limitations'.
DeleteYou were NOT r***d - stop being so deliberately offensive.
"Obsessive trolling". Irony? Self awareness?
As a former HMRC staff member you should be aware that the department would not write-off billions of pounds of revenue without a strong push from our political leaders. This has Bojo the Clown and Dishy Rishi's fingerprints all over it.
ReplyDeleteIt would be much, much easier to "root out the corrupt" if you were to hand over your evidence of HMRC criminality to the police. But for some strange reason you refuse to do this. Stop complaining when the solution lies with yourself.