The Face of HMRC

My compliments to Moira Stuart (the face of HMRC) for taking steps to ensure that her tax bill is minimised.

Ms Stuart has set up a company that entitles her to pay corporation tax at 21% on some of her earnings, rather than income tax at up to 50%.

HMRC have taken action against people who use these arrangements if they deem them to be "disguised employees".

However, the Telegraph quotes a spokesman for HMRC:

"Moira Stewart works on specific advertising campaigns for HMRC. She is not employed directly by us so there is no question of disguised employment."

Ms Stuart replaced Adam Hart-Davis as the face of HMRC. Adam Hart-Davis, was booted out by HMRC in 2008, as I wrote at the time:

"It seems that the recent comments by Mr Hart-Davis about wishing that the tax system was simpler, and describing VAT as "absurdly complicated", has not gone down well with HMRC.

Mr Hart-Davis, for good measure, then called for a flat rate tax and said that the merger of the Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise in 2005 was a mistake. His rationale being that the two departments were too large to "slam together"."


Tax does have to be taxing.

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Amnesty

Now here is a piece of news that may be of interest to a few of you, "Stop Hitting Me Officer" especially who recently commented:

"Filing online?

I just put mine in a buff-coloured envelope earlier today and filed it at the Postal Orifice with a letter explaining "1 month + 8 emails + 12 telephone calls = quite enough effort trying to be allowed to register to file online so herewith paper..."

When the "penalty" arrives in the post I'll load the Purdey with buckshot and invite them to come and collect in person...."

Anyhoo, it transpires that more than a handful of people are a tad "miffed" that HMRC had not adequately publicised the fact that there was a 21 January deadline for registering for pin codes, in order to be able to file on line. Moira Stewart's nice little adverts reminding people about the 31 January online filing deadline failed to mention that rather important point.

Would this not be a cause for complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority?

Notwithstanding any official complaint to ASA, HMRC has been forced to issue an amnesty to those who missed the cut off because they registered for a pin after 21 January.

In true HMRC style, the tardy taxpayers will still receive the £100 penalty notice. However, HMRC will not enforce the fine if an appeal is lodged on the basis that a pin was not received in time.

This probably should help "Stop Hitting Me Officer". However, as those of you who are regulars will know (and have read his numerous comments on this site), he registered for a pin code well before 21 January and, despite repeated attempts (phone, email, letter etc), never received one.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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HMRC Reported To ASA

Peter Clare, an ex tax inspector, has lodged an official complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority about HMRC's TV advert featuring Moira Stuart and the Jan 31st Self Assessment deadline.

He is quoted:

"We are told in deadpan tone to complete our tax return AND pay our tax by this date or we will get a £100 fine. This is absolutely not true.

The £100 fine is for not sending in a tax return when requested, and even then this should be rescinded if there is no tax to pay.

It has nothing to do with the tax due, although of course, this has to be paid."

Tax does have to be taxing.

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Welcome Moira

HMRC having sacked Adam Hart-Davis as their front man, for his comments about the complexity of tax, have now recruited Moira Stuart as the new face of HMRC's Self Assessment TV advertising campaign.

The adverts will feature Moira "popping up in unexpected places" to remind people of the deadline dates. Moira will also be appearing on billboards and posters, and in press and online ads, encouraging people to beat the deadlines and file on time.

Excellent!

However, I understand from a comment posted on Accounting Web, that:

"There is such a backlog of returns not even logged as received with half the staff not trained to capture them, they will just add to the stock-pile on window ledges, desks and floors."

Maybe the money spent on hiring Moria would have been better spent on improving the systems in house?

Tax does have to be taxing.

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