Ruth Owen To Leave HMRC

My thanks to a loyal reader who dropped me this HMRC announcement about Ruth Owen:

"HMRC’s Director General for Customer Services, Ruth Owen, is to leave the Civil Service in May.

Ruth joined the Civil Service 27 years ago, starting in a local Social Security office. After a career in operational delivery, project delivery and strategy she joined HMRC to lead Personal Tax in 2012, before becoming our first Director General for Customer Services last year.

We’ll be able to share more details on Ruth's future plans in the next few weeks.

Ruth said: “I have loved my time in HMRC and I leave feeling immensely proud of what we have achieved. The last five years have seen some significant changes in the service we provide to our customers, the way we think about our customers as well as how we do business and how we work together. I know I will greatly miss so many fantastic people and teams, who I’ve been privileged to work with over the last five years. All our achievements are down to the passion, commitment and hard work of Team HMRC and our shared desire to make a difference.

“It has been a difficult decision to leave. We are now embarking on an exciting new phase of Building our Future, aiming to be the best customer service organisation in the UK, and offering world-class digital services, which our customers really rate. But I have a one-off opportunity to try a different career in the private sector that will offer me new challenges and the opportunity to develop a new set of skills.

“I have particularly enjoyed working under both Lin and Jon’s leadership. I feel really optimistic and confident in HMRC’s future and wish Jon and my ExCom colleagues well in steering the department towards our vision.”

Jon Thompson, Chief Executive, said: “Ruth will be hard to replace; her energy and dedication to brilliant customer services is an inspiration. Ruth’s experience and insight will be missed around the ExCom table and her drive for ever greater performance will be missed in Customer Services, but I wish her well as she embarks on a new career in the private sector.”

We’ll shortly announce who will lead Customer Services Group in the interim, and HMRC will begin an open competition for a new Director General very shortly."

Leaving to join the private sector, anyone know where?

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's Three Legged Stool - Strategy, Service and Compliance

HMRC is to launch yet another restructuring drive, with the theoretical intent of putting the "customer" ("TAXPAYER" FFS!) at the heart of the restructured organisation.

The current four HMRC directorates will be streamlined into three distinct divisions:

From 1 October, the existing four directorates will be reorganised into three groups:

1. a new customer strategy and tax design group, which brings together customer strategy, tax policy, process design and tax assurance teams, led by Jim Harra, director general business tax;
2. an expanded customer service group, which includes the main operational teams, led by Ruth Owen, currently director general customer services;
3. a customer compliance group, which will tackle non-compliance and enforcement for all customer groups, including large businesses, led by Jennie Granger, current director general enforcement and compliance.

Central to the customer strategy and tax design group will be the inclusion of representatives from customer services reorganised. This group will include personal tax customer product and process staff, who will take up their new roles in October, while specialist personal tax teams with expertise in policy, technical, shares and valuation, will come on board by December 2016.

The fourth directorate, headed up by Nick Lodge, covering general benefits and credits will be assimilated into the other three core groups.

Where does Lodge end up, or does HMRC hope he falls on his sword?

HMRC director of corporate communications Stephen Hardwick is quoted by CCH Daily:

"As we have been evolving what we do, and where we do it, as part of this transformation, we have also kept our organisational structure under review, to ensure that it is fit for the future and that it supports our new digital and collaborative ways of working.

As a result, we have now decided to make some further changes to how we are structured. From October, we will be reorganising the directorates in our four existing lines of business into three new groups."

An HMRC spokesperson added:

"The way HMRC works is changing for the better. We are more determined than ever to deliver an outstanding service to our customers while clamping down on the minority of tax dodgers who try to cheat the system.

This announcement is about the next step in driving those commitments forward, modernising how we work.

There will also be no redundancies as a result of this restructure."

This restructuring appears to be driven by the need to make the organisation fit in with the Making Tax Digital process, surely it should be the other way around?

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"

Ruth Owen Uses The "C" Word

Ruth Owen, HMRC customer services director, has labelled British taxpayers as “customers”, despite radio presenter John Humphrys pointing out the public has “no choice” but to deal with them.

Good for Humphrys pointing out what has been said many times on this site over the past few years!

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"

Manners Maketh Man - Thank You For Paying Your tax

Never let it be said that HMRC is not a well mannered organisation, for it transpires that HMRC has started to send thank you letters to taxpayers who pay their tax on time.

The initiative is based on Australian tax etiquette, where taxpayers receive automatic thank you letters acknowledging the tax that has been paid.

This is all very nice, maybe, expect that according to the Telegraph taxpayers spent 4 million hours on the phone last year to HMRC. Therefore maybe not every taxpayer will be that impressed with this diversion of attention and resources.

Anyhoo Ruth Owen, HMRC's Director General for Customer Service, told PAC that trials of the 'thank you' letters had started in recent weeks:

"testing that with customers now to see what customers think about that”. 

There's the "C" word again!

Apparently results will be available within weeks.

Please feel free to give your views on these thank you notes.

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"

890,000 Miss Tax Return Deadline

It appears that 890,000 people have missed the online tax return deadline of 31 January. as such they all face a fine of £100 9for starters).

The figure is 180,000 greater than last year.

Ruth Owen (Director General of Personal Tax) is quoted by the BBC:

"This is another record-breaking year for self-assessment, with 210,000 more people filing their returns on time than last year.

If you're one of the minority who missed the deadline, you still need to get your tax return to us as soon as possible, to avoid further penalties and interest mounting up."

The ICAEW, for reasons bet know to itself, has worked out the Jaffa Cake equivalent of the £89M that HMRC hope to collect in fines.

HMRC: 890,000 late returns this year – that’s 180,000 more than last year! @HMRCgovuk pic.twitter.com/o3cj5U3xMp
— ICAEW (@ICAEW) February 3, 2015

Why?

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"

RTI Has Fundamental Problems

Oh dear, despite HMRC insisting that everything in the garden (wrt RTI) is rosy not everyone agrees.

Step forward the ICAEW, which has stated that RTI is "badly designed" with "fundamental problems".

Peter Bickley of the ICAEW is quoted by This is Money:

"It is not going as smoothly as the Revenue would have you believe. It has been badly designed from the beginning and there are fundamental problems.

There are problems of duplicate entries, items not being processed, information which employers should be able to see on their screen not showing, employees put on the wrong tax code, and the Revenue’s debt management and banking arm pursuing underpayments based on incorrect information. This is causing a lot of anxiety.

The Revenue is saying “you have filed late” or “you have not filed something” in cases where the employer has filed late because they are allowed to under relaxations, or filed early and it was not recorded."

As an aside, I am rather amused to see that he is still calling HMRC "the Revenue". However, the point he makes is valid.

The ICAEW met with HMRC's Ruth Owen, who is in charge of RTI, to urge HMRC to fix its IT problems and relax its efforts to chase underpayments.

Bickley said:

"We suggested they adjust their tone and make sure they are not sticking the boot in. A lot of employers’ time is being wasted and costs are running up. We are pressing Ministers for the Revenue to be given funding to make RTI work."

The ICAEW is hosting comments from members about RTI on a blog post "RTI – are you swimming or sinking?"

So folks, how's it going for you then?

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"

HMRC's Soft Landing

Further to my article yesterday about the problems facing SME's wrt next year's RTI launch, and the seven day window for submitting data, it seems that HMRC are signalling that the first year of RTI will be "RTI Light" wrt penalties.

Payroll World quote Ruth Owen (HMRC's Director General of Personal Tax) who has drawn the short straw of being responsible for RTI:

“We are minded towards the soft landing approach so giving people perhaps a year to run RTI before we move into the new penalty regime.

Bearing in mind that with the migration some bigger organisations aren’t coming onto RTI until next summer then we believe everybody deserves a bit of a default period before we start heading into penalties.

I believe that most businesses will comply and want to comply and our most important thing is let’s get the tax in and let’s get RTI up and running as opposed to creating work for everybody, which is penalties – we’d rather have the money than the penalties.”

It seems that HMRC will issue "dummy" penalties to employers from April 2013 (which will not incur a real fiscal cost), in order that they are made aware when they have not complied with their RTI duties.


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 Taxwise.

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 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"