Homer's Noble Purpose

My thanks to a loyal reader who dropped me a note about a recent hot seat question and answer session, in which Lin Homer was asked about tax avoidance.

The exchange, according to my loyal reader, went as follows:

"Q: Ian Barlow (the new lead HMRC non -executive director) has been reported in the press as saying: 

'There is no meaningful distinction to be drawn between acceptable tax planning and unacceptable tax avoidance.'

 Do you agree with this statement? 

If not can you explain why a person holding such views has been appointed to a senior position in HMRC? 

Edward Troup (the new Tax Assurance Commissioner) has written that: 

'Taxation is legalised extortion'

In the same article he said that the judgement about whether to engage in tax avoidance or not was 'not immoral'. 

Do you agree with these sentiments? 

If not would you again explain why such a person could be appointed to a senior position in HMRC? 

Lin Homer responded: The views that Ian Barlow expressed in the article were several years old, and in fact he was making the point that legally there is no distinction between acceptable tax planning and unacceptable tax avoidance. 

In that sense, he was correct in what he wrote. 

Since that time Ian has worked very closely and successfully with Dave Hartnett to bring tax as an issue to be discussed in the Boardrooms of major companies, making responsible tax policy a Board-level subject for debate and oversight. Edward Troup’s comments were also made in an old article. 

The debate about the morality of tax avoidance is a live issue today, and I would prefer to regard paying all due taxes on time in terms of a noble purpose, rather than in terms of morality. 

I think morality is an issue for theologians and politicians, rather than for civil servants. 

The reason both Ian and Edward have been appointed to their new positions is because of the vast experience they bring in both tax and business, and this will be invaluable to HMRC."

Egad!

Paying all taxes is a "noble purpose"!

I would agree with her that the issue of "morality" is not for the civil service, but is instead an issue for theologians. However, I would most certainly not agree with her that morality is an issue for politicians.

I refer Homer to my article in June, in which I said:

"A politician lecturing us on morality is as natural as a cat walking on its hind legs."

May I make a suggestion that at future hot seat Q&A sessions, if appropriate, loyal readers from HMRC start quoting from this site and/or suggesting that Excom start to read this site (just to see what the reaction is).

You never know, they may learn something!

Tax does have to be taxing.



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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

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Caseflow - Spectrum Isn't Green

In September 2011 I wrote the following:

"Despite all the public pronouncements by HMRC that improvements are on schedule, and that targets etc will be met, it appears that one particular target will not be met.

Anything important?

Errrmm, yes actually...Universal Credit, the flagship of the government's plans to simplify the benefits system ."

That prompted a discussion amongst loyal readers (LR's) about the failure of Caseflow.

LR1:

"and get shot of PaceSetter and Caseflow. These systems cost a colossal amount of taxpayers' money, yet there is not a shred of evidence that HMRC have improved their performance as a consequence of their implementation.

Does anyone know where to find a verifiable figure for the costs to date of PaceSetter and Caseflow?

It's only taxpayers' money that is being wasted, so the management don't care, but I imagine Joe Public and the Public Accounts Committee might be interested how many £millions are being flushed down the loo."

LR2

"Re Pacesetter and Caseflow. They will never be ditched as they have never been continuously " reviewed". You will find numbers bandied about hundreds of millions in efficiency savings which conflate increases in productivity with greater tax take all because of the new systems.

UC will have to be delivered, maybe on time, maybe late, because it must. Tax Credits need to be sorted out. Pacesetter will continue as it believed to be the cure to all that ails HMRC ( as well as the rest of the Civil Service).

Case flow is getting regular mentions on the Hotseat. The answers are emphatic. Nothing is wrong, this is simply continuous improvement!"

Well now, here we are almost six months later and Sky reports that taxpayers have spent £98M on two tax collection projects that failed to bring in any extra money.

Can you guess what one of them was children?

Yes, that's right, Caseflow (the other being Spectrum - is Captain Scarlet involved now?).

These new systems were meant to bring in £743M last year. However, the National Audit Office (NAO) has stated that they have not delivered "any additional benefits".

The NAO have warned that HMRC will not meet its future forecasts to collect an additional £8.9BN by 2014/15, thanks to the failure of Caseflow and Spectrum.

Why then when issues are raised at Hotseat about Caseflow failing, are they swept under the carpet with the answer that "Nothing is wrong, this is simply continuous improvement."?

Is a Mysteron agent within HMRC?

Tax does have to be taxing.

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HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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"

Hotseat III - HMRC Backpedals

I am advised by a loyal reader that HMRC's Hotseat Question 23 briefly disappeared from the HMRC intranet, only to reappear with this addendum.

Could that sound we hear be the sound of furious backpedalling from HMRC "management"?

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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"

Hotseat II

Folks, re yesterday's article, I had a few technical problems at this end. They have now been resolved and I have now uploaded the "hotseat" Q&A re staff survey results and office closures.

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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"

Hotseat

My thanks to a loyal reader who forwarded me an extract of a recent "hotseat" interaction posted on the HMRC intranet.

It seems that HMRC offices that produce poor staff survey results in the future may be closed!

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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"

HMRC Staff Survey 2010 - Strathie Responds

In February 2010 HMRC published the results of their staff survey which were less than, ermmm, "encouraging".

The good news is that, some 4 months after publication, Lesley Strathie (CEO of HMRC) has commented/responded to HMRC staff about the results on the HMRC intranet.

The bad news is that it may take a wee while for the promised improvements to materialise. Strathie expects the results of the next survey to be equally dismal:

"We may not see much, if any, improvement in the next set of People Survey results. These issues are deep-seated and will take time to turn round; with your help, we can do that."

As John Maynard Keynes once said:

"In the long run we are all dead".

Here is the text of her message:

"Whenever I visit one of our offices, it's not long before someone asks what we are doing in response to our People Survey results (PDF). It is one of the biggest issues in the Hotseat and I know people take the whole issue extremely seriously. Quite rightly, I want to see action.

Let me be clear. The results of the People Survey were incredibly disappointing and, along with my ExCom colleagues, I appreciate most of you are passionate about the work you do. It is not acceptable for HMRC to be placed as poorly as it was and we need to work hard to reverse that situation.

Over the last few months, we have looked carefully at the results. We have done a great deal of research about what motivates people in HMRC; what do you expect from us as an employer; and what gets you out of bed in the morning.

This has given us a real understanding of the action we need to take. It is why we are looking at the following three big areas that we are confident will make a real difference.

Getting leadership right

The first is leadership. Getting the right leaders in place with the right skills is absolutely critical if we are to motivate people and unlock their potential. That's why we are making it clear what good leadership is and – equally importantly – spelling out the actions and approaches we do not want to see in this Department. We will be very clear that bad leadership has no place in HMRC.

This won't just be words on a page. Our appraisal and reward strategies are being redesigned so it is clear what we, and you, can expect from our leaders. The customer is central to all of this, along with a more open and collaborative approach. We are also looking at the skills our leaders have and the support we can give so they can do their jobs better. You will see more about this from July.
Great expectations

The second big area of work is all about the relationship our people have with us as their employer. That means being clear about what you can expect from us and what, in return, we can expect from you. This will cover many of the practicalities around our work.

It will look at a range of topics including how you can expect your career to progress; the benefits you receive as an employee; and the type and amount of work we can reasonably expect from you when you're at work.

We've already started on this and we will be talking to many of you about what this means in practice over the summer months. We are, of course, working closely with our trade unions on all of this.

The work itself

People have repeatedly told us they want more of a say in the decisions that affect their work. This is already a fundamental part of PaceSetter, which we are continuing to introduce and embed across the whole Department.

HMRC's strategy, which will be launched in the autumn, sets out how our processes and procedures will be designed around the behaviours and needs of our customers. Clearly, the involvement of the people who interact with our customers day in and day out will be a fundamental part of this work. We will tell you more about what this means during September and October.

Your own business areas are also committed to acting on the results of the survey. You should have all had conversations with your line managers by now about your team’s results and what can be done about them.

Our challenge

It is important to be realistic and honest about the challenges we face. Things will not get any easier over the coming months. Equally, there is no magic wand we can wave to improve the way people feel about the Department.

We may not see much, if any, improvement in the next set of People Survey results. These issues are deep-seated and will take time to turn round; with your help, we can do that.

Despite the challenges we face, our achievements as a Department are considerable. We need to be proud of what we do but should never forget that we can always do better."

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"

From The Coal Face

Today I would like let HMRC staff (let us not forget that they are taxpayers as well) do the talking about the reality of working for HMRC, I would especially like to give prominence to a comment made by an HMRC employee relating to my article "Morale Here is Not High".

The comment "somewhat" undercuts, and neatly shreds, the attempt by "nearly man" Hartnett to present a positive spin about life in HMRC.

I would be very pleased to receive more comments from HMRC staff.

"Morale here is not high and that's because we are in the middle of a huge change programme."

Er, no. Morale is 'not high' (or as we like to refer to it in plain English - low) because the whole merger has been quite astoundingly mishandled. Yes, it was a bad idea from the very beginning (thanks for that, Gordon), but the way that senior management have run this is staggeringly bad. If you could only see some of the details of the Departmental 'hotseat' where us plebs can put our questions to senior management. It's a fascinating exercise in bullet-dodging, fact-dodging and, indeed, answer-dodging. We've watched these two once-proud departments get pissed away all in the name of saving a few shekels. So, yes, you could say that morale is pretty bloody low.

"Our customers don't really write to us anymore or come into our offices and we are changing."

There are thousands upon thousands of unopened letters piling up in a variety of offices all over the country. Hartnett is clearly a buffoon to suggest that people don't write to us. Oh, and the reason that nobody comes into our offices is because most of them are being closed down! Try finding your local Enquiry Centre - it probably isn't there anymore. Instead, it's been centralised miles away from where you can reasonably visit it. If you do manage to make the journey there, they'll just point you in the direction of a telephone on the wall so you can speak to somebody with unsatisfactory training, an unwieldy, usually broken, computer system, and a sheet of obsolete phone numbers.

"It's a difficult world for 83,000 full-time staff to be thrilled with life."

I find that last part to be, frankly, insulting. Few people in this world are 'thrilled' to go into work, you patronising bastard. I don't expect to wake up in the morning and leap out of bed, clapping my hands in anticipation of another glorious day at HMRC. I would, however, like to wake up and not immediately be hit by the sapping realisation that when I get into the office I'm going to have to deal with piss-poor management and inept decision-making as someone in a shiny office in London, trousering a nice fat performance-bonus, tells me that I'm going to have to wait six months for my below-inflation pay rise simply because the Treasury can't get its arse in gear.

So, yes, Mr Hartnett, we're not exactly happy at the moment, and the reason for that is we've seen a succession of useless Chairmen wander through HMRC, each less capable than the last, picking up gongs and cash payouts, and not making a scrap of difference to the festering pile of shite that is HMRC."

Tax does have to be taxing.

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"

Saying Sorry

You know how that saying sorry can be a very painful and troubling process for some people?

Well, that's not the case for the good old boys from the HMRC.

As soon as it was reported that they lost the data records for 25 million people, and put those people's personal security at risk for the next 20 years, HMRC were on the case immediately with an apology letter.

Over 7 million were sent.

Great!

Apart from the fact that their apology letter was a breach of security, and some of those letters have got lost.

However, let us not dwell on uncomfortable realities such as those.

The important point was that a letter was sent, and everybody knows that HMRC is really sorry.

Oh, one small point...

How much did it cost to send over 7 million letters?

From the perspective of HMRC, absolutely nothing at all.

How is that?

Well, HMRC of course use our money (taxes to be precise) to pay for their costs; it's a win win situation, if you are HMRC.

The cost to the tax payers of them paying for this letter?

Oh, a mere £3M.

Money well spent!

The funny thing is that HMRC have been very reluctant to tell the taxpayers how much they were charged for sending a letter of apology.

Why would that be then?

Are HMRC ashamed of themselves?

Or is it that they don't believe that the taxpayer has the right to know what HMRC is doing with taxpayers' money?

By the way, one other small point, at a "hotseat" briefing just after Chancellor Darling admitted to the loss of data, acting chairman David Hartnett answered questions from staff through the HMRC intranet.

He was asked how much the costs of the apology letters were going to be.

He answered £2M.

Yet the reality is £3M.

How embarrassing for him, a member of HMRC who can't do their sums.

However, as I said at the outset, the cost to HMRC of saying sorry is nothing; they don't give a stuff, so why should they be bothered to get their sums right?

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