The Oncoming Pension Clusterfuck

 

HMRC issues inheritance tax update ahead of 'nightmare' raid on pension savingshttps://t.co/dkyzsyzH6x

— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 16, 2026

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"

Juniors Fucked Up IHT

 

REVEALED: Entire HMRC Inheritance Tax Analysis Team Is Fewer Than Five ‘Junior Officials' https://t.co/NHN8xYalue pic.twitter.com/Fj5uOb5NZQ

— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) August 1, 2025

Tax does have to be taxing.



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Internal Expert of The Year

 

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"

HMRC's "Secret" Tax Investigation Unit

HMRC has created a secretive unit to investigate the use of family investment companies by the very wealthy to avoid inheritance tax, putting family offices with an estimated $1tn-plus in assets in its sights.

HMRC set up the team last April to target the issue of FICs. The creation of the new unit, which was not previously disclosed, comes amid growing concern about inequality and the perception that the wealthy avoid taxes by using sophisticated legal instruments.

HMRC only revealed the existence of the new investigations unit, which sits inside its Wealthy and Mid-sized Compliance Directorate, only after a freedom of information request was filed by Pinsent Masons’ public relations company. 

In a statement to the FT, HMRC said:

"The Family Investment Company team was established . . . in April 2019 to look at FICs and do a quantitative and qualitative review into any tax risks associated with them with a focus on inheritance tax implications. The team’s work is exploratory at this stage and as such, we would not like to share any more details.” 

Not so "secret" now!


Tax does have to be taxing.

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HMRC's Online IHT Service Has Died

HMRC’s online inheritance tax service unavailable https://t.co/VtyPSo5XZj via @accountancylive

— Accountancy Daily (@accountancylive) March 26, 2019

Tax does have to be taxing.

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Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

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Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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.

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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"

Death and Taxes - HMRC Still Get Death Wrong!

HMRC has admitted it does not hold data on the number of people that have been wrongfully taxed on their death benefits.

Since 2016, HMRC has been issuing P6 tax coding notices in error for death benefit payments that are entirely non-taxable. HMRC has said in consecutive newsletters that it is working to solve the problem, and has issued guidance requesting pension administrators to contact the taxman in these cases.

However, a freedom of information (FOI) request submitted by Royal London and seen by FTAdviser revealed that HMRC does not have accessible data on the number of people affected by this error.

The FOI stated the information is "not held in a centrally searchable/retrievable format". HMRC’s systems hold information where a taxable or non-taxable death benefit for a beneficiary has been reported, it said.

But to provide information on the cases where tax was wrongly sought, the taxman would have to manually filter the death benefits data to identify non-taxable payments.

 "Once filtered, an IT scan would be required to identify individuals where a P6 was issued. The individual’s circumstances would then have to be manually reviewed to determine if the P6 was issued correctly or not." 

HMRC added it could not produce the information at this stage as it would exceed the workload limited under FOI rules.

 Sir Steve Webb, director of policy at Royal London and former pensions minister, said it was "shocking" to hear HMRC admit that people have been wrongly taxed without any clear idea of how many people were affected.

Quoted by FTAdviser:

"It doesn’t generate confidence in the accuracy of the tax system when HMRC can tell you they are getting something wrong but can’t say if this is a small problem or one which affects thousands of people."

An HMRC spokesperson passed the buck:

"HMRC has issued guidance to pension scheme administrators advising them that if they receive a P6 coding notice from HMRC showing an amount that they have paid which is not taxable, not to operate the code but to contact HMRC.

HMRC will then issue a revised P6 to be operated against any future payments made by the scheme."

Ho Hum, HMRC simply gets others to do its work for it!

Tax does have to be taxing.

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Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

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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 Wants Its Cake Both Ways

At recent HMRC webinar it was asked how HMRC can argue that loans are earnings for income tax but still argue for IHT. The misleading HMRC reply was that they are following the law,which of course is a lie as the very purpose of the webinar was to encourage voluntary settlement pic.twitter.com/sNqZl78T5m

— Gordon Berry (@wealthagent) August 10, 2018

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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.

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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"

Beware HMRC's Enablers - Crassly Ignorant Reporters Looking For a Cheap Headline

Bruce Forsyth 'dodged inheritance tax' by leaving £11.7m to wife over kids

Is this was what HMRC campaigns and media hysteria about tax planning has really come to? Criticising use of the IHT spouse exemption? Quite frightening. https://t.co/mk2i6UXbdw

— Mark McLaughlin (@charteredtax) June 19, 2018

IHT spousal exemption is not "tax dodging"!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Good For Sir Ken!

The Times estimates - if that is not too strong a word - that Ken Dodd’s deathbed wedding may have cost HMRC £3m https://t.co/JUR816x3ea pic.twitter.com/pt3pDPAxHV

— Paul Lewis (@paullewismoney) March 13, 2018

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

IHT= Individual Higher Rate Taxpayers - FFS!

"HMRC officer...rather undermined their own credibility when I was helpfully told that IHT referred to ‘Individual Higher rate Taxpayers’." https://t.co/I5NhP6UFcd

— HMRC Victim (@HMRCVictim) September 4, 2017

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Death and Taxes - HMRC's Bespoke Approach

Irrespective of the fact that people pay taxes during their lifetimes, the state still requires its pound of flesh when they die.

However, although it won't cut the taxes due, HMRC is going to cut down on the amount of information it requires for the bereaved to reclaim tax or pay tax when someone dies.

In 2012, HMRC gave a commitment to improve its service for bereaved taxpayers. 

One of the main changes will make relates to form R27, which is for reclaiming tax or paying tax when someone dies. The FT Adviser notes that of the bereavement calls received by HMRC, 34% were about filling in the form and 15% were to get an update on the progress of the form.

HMRC, in an effort to free up its phone lines, will now use real time information to obtain all the pay and tax information it needs from bereaved taxpayers, making the form R27 unnecessary and ready for removal on 13 October.

For PAYE taxpayers, there will be an automated process, and for self assessment taxpayers there will be what HMRC calls “a tailored service,” which includes letters that match the individual’s circumstances.

According to HMRC, removing the form means taxpayers will get their tax affairs sorted quickly and need to contact it less. That of course is only true if the data used by HMRC is accurate.

As the old saying goes, there are two certainties in life death and taxes!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Death and Taxes - Death Tax Before You Die

There are only two things that are certain in life, death and taxes.

Normally governments are content with people dying first (once they are of no more use to the state), then extracting further "value" from the hapless corpse by taxing the corpse's estate.

However, the British government (because it is broke), has decided that death simply is not coming quickly enough; therefore it wants to extract its death tax before the taxpayer has died.

A brilliant wheeze by anyone's standards, and one that the government's minions in HMRC are keen to employ.

As such, HMRC are mulling proposals whereby it would be granted powers to subject people minimising inheritance tax to “accelerated payment” laws, meaning they would be forced to pay up front if HMRC suspect them of using new schemes to avoid tax.

As with all of our tax laws, the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" has been abandoned in favour of "guilty!".

The new rules will apply to trusts that HMRC believes are being used to avoid tax. However, as with all matters concerning HMRC, there is ample opportunity for HMRC to screw things up or for "mission creep" to occur over time as HMRC seeks to get its hands on ever more money earlier than it should.

When it comes to taxes never trust the words of the politicians, or that intentions of HMRC!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Complex

Accountants and politicians are calling on HM Revenue & Customs to publicise exemptions from inheritance tax (IHT) properly after a Telegraph reader's four-year struggle to be repaid nearly £53,000.

The tax was wrongly deducted because he was unaware of an important exemption, potentially affecting thousands of families, until he read about it in the Telegraph – but HMRC says the tax rules are clearly set out in its literature and everybody should know about them.

However, independent experts say many professional advisers to bereaved families of servicemen and women are unaware of the IHT exemption because they come across it so rarely.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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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"

Taxing The Dead

There are two certainties in life, death and taxes.

The Treasury has, over the last 30 years, managed to combine the two via imposing the iniquitous IHT. However, until now, bereaved families have been at least given some time to pay it with penalties for late payment (six months after death) never going beyond base rate.

Sadly, since the government has managed to bankrupt the country it is now desperate for every penny that it can raise in order to pay its own wage bill. As such, HMRC will be increasing the rate it charges on IHT late payments to 3% (2.5% above base).

Ironically, where there is a tax overpayment HMRC will only pay 1% below base rate, with a floor of 0.5% (ie 0.5% at current base rate).

HMRC say:

"Interest is not a penalty but compensation for tax paid late.

We are streamlining the rates charged and paid for interest to simplify and make things fairer for customers.

This has been subject to extensive consultation over the last 18 months and has been largely welcomed by customer groups and their representatives.

The alignment of rates that will take place in September will mean that all tax paid late is subject to interest at the same rate, so ensuring all taxpayers are treated equally.

And in the interest of fairness we will also be introducing a repayment interest floor, to ensure that any taxpayer overpaying tax will receive interest."

- How is it fair to penalise the bereaved in this manner?

- How is it fair to charge 3% for late payments, but only pay 0.5% when tax has been overpaid?

- How can anyone seriously describe taxpayers as "customers"?

- How did HMRC manage to issue such a bullshit statement whilst keeping a straight face?

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"

Computer Says No - HMRC Shuts Down Its System

Those of you attempting to engage with certain parts of HMRC's online systems today will have a few problems.

HMRC will shut down its main online processing systems from 8am today (20th August) for 24 hours, to undertake essential maintenance and upgrade work.

The online mechanism for entering data and filing self assessment tax returns, VAT returns, Corporation Tax and PAYE returns will be unavailable according to a very well hidden page on HMRC's site.

Also shutdown will be the online systems for administering Child Benefits, the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS), the EC Sales List (ECSL) and Reverse Charge Sales List (RCSL), Inheritance Tax (IHT) form requests, pension schemes, Stamp taxes and the shared workspace facilities.

Here's a radical thought, how about putting information such as this on the main web page?

Could it be that they don't want too many people to know that their online systems suck?

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"

Dead Wood

The Tories recently revealed their plans for removing the dead wood, and there is a lot of it, from the UK tax system during a lecture at the ICAEW headquarters in Moorgate.

Lord Howe together with George Osborne addressed an audience of the profession's leading tax figures, and explained how a Tory government would make the UK's tax framework simpler.

Lord Howe's report "Making Taxes Simpler", proposes that an Office of Tax Simplification would be set up to examine the existing tax code and make proposals.

A cross party committee would scrutinise government initiatives and proposals, and any changes to tax law would be flagged up to the public no later than the pre Budget report

However, he warned:

"It's going to be a very long haul."

George Osborne noted that "this complex and unwieldy piece of legislation provides a perfect lesson in how not to make tax policy."

It is at least a start that the opposition recognise that the tax system has become far too complex for both the taxpayers to understand, and for HMRC to administer (even if they were up to strength).

However, we are stuck with two more years of Brown. The future, for the medium term, is very bleak indeed for both the taxpayers and those who work in HMRC (who are also taxpayers as well).

As I have noted before, the most effective method of simplifying the tax system is to:

- cut out erroneous taxes such as CGT and IHT
- increase personal allowances to around £10K
- levy one rate of tax at 20%
- make up the shortfall in revenues via VAT

Bada Bing
Bada Bong!

Tax does have to be taxing.

The New Statesman, Britain's leading political magazine is delighted to announce that HMRC Is Shite has been nominated for a New Media Award in the category of Campaign For Change. The campaign for change award will go to the individual or organisation that has most effectively influenced opinions and behaviour through the use of new media technology. The winner of this award will champion a cause and provide information and tools to instigate change.

The full press release can be downloaded here.

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 Buys Stolen Goods

Some rather interesting news emerged over the weekend, about HMRC buying a series of CDs containing the personal details (eg bank accounts) of a large number of British citizens.

Could this be the missing CDs that HMRC lost last year, containing the details of 25 million child benefit claimants?

Errrmmm......No.

These CDs apparently contain the details of a large number of wealthy people who hold bank accounts in Liechtenstein.

HMRC are so keen to track down every penny of tax, that they believe is owed to them, that they have now stooped to paying off nefarious characters in order to obtain information about suspected tax evaders.

HM Revenue & Customs paid £100K to Heinrich Kieber, for data that it will use to launch investigations of up to 100 British citizens who have accounts at Liechtenstein's biggest bank (LGT).

Now, you may well ask, how did Herr Kieber obtain this data?

Well, he seems to have nicked it.

In 2004 he was convicted of fraud for stealing sensitive information from his employer, LGT, the biggest bank in Liechtenstein, which is controlled by the principality's royal family.

Nice doing business with you Herr Kieber!

Maybe someone should remind HMRC that it is an offence to knowingly handle stolen goods?

Now that these CDs are in the hands of HMRC, given their lamentable track record with regard to information security, can we expect these CDs to be "lost" and then appear on the open market again for purchase at the highest price?

Of course HMRC would argue that none of this subterfuge, unpleasant dealings and costs (in terms of time, money and effort) would have to be undertaken if people didn't go to such extraordinary lengths to evade tax.

That in itself is true, up to a point. However, one of the prime motivations for tax evasion is the complexity of the tax system.

Simplify the tax system to resolve this problem, and cut the costs of collecting tax:

- increase the personal allowances to around £10K
- introduce a flat rate of tax of around 20%
- abolish all other perverse taxes such as; stamp duty, CGT, IHT, NI etc
- increase the rate of VAT to make up the shortfall

Do the above, and there will be a dramatic reduction in the amount of time, effort and money expended by both taxpayers and HMRC in trying to wade their way through the tax system.

Tax does have to be taxing.

HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com) is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"