Dedicated to the taxpayers of Britain, and the employees of His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), who have to endure the monumental shambles that is HMRC.
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.
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.
HMRC has announced that it intends to improve its communications with the outside world, in an attempt to help the outside world understand what it is talking about.
As such it has rewritten over 200 of its standard letters, in order to make them simpler and easier to understand.
Tax does have to be taxing.
Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations
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.
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.
As predicted those with (as yet) undeclared offshore holdings seem to be opting for HMRC's Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility (LDF), rather than HMRC's New Disclosure Opportunity (NDO).
PwC have estimated that, with the deadline now gone for the NDO, approximately 13,000 individuals registered for the NDO.
Given the fact that the NDO has harsher penalties than the LDF this modest figure is not that surprising.
PwC estimate that the NDO will raise approximately £135M.
Tax does have to be taxing.
Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations
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.
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.
My thanks to one of my loyal readers who pointed me to a page in the HMRC site that lists all manner of research, including the 2009 Staff Survey (taken in Feb 2009). This was referred to in HMRC's Capability Re-Review (published 14 December 2009 by the Cabinet Office).
Rather confusingly HMRC call it "Employee Engagement Survey", and have placed at the bottom of a page called "Research", no wonder I couldn't find it!
The survey makes for dismal reading, and shows differences in key metrics compared with the bench mark (BM) survey undertaken in February 2009. The percentage point difference in positive scores between HMRC results and the median score across all Government Departments and Agencies taking part in this survey.
Aside from showing a lack of pride in working for HMRC etc, the survey also highlights the culture of bullying that is often mentioned in comments posted on this site by HMRC staff.
Here are a few extracts:
Returns: 53,071 Response rate: 60%
Employee Engagement score
32% -16% compared with BM February 2009
Through statistical analysis the questions that best measure employee engagement say', stay' and strive') have been grouped in an index. The index score is shown below. The questions that make up the index are labelled in the "Results by question" section of this report.
Employee engagement consists of 3 elements:
- Say 21%, -21% compared with BM February 2009 - Stay 60%, -9% compared with BM February 2009 - Strive 14%, -16% compared with BM February 2009
My work gives me a sense of personal accomplishment 46%, -24% compared with BM February 2009
I am sufficiently challenged and motivated in my work 47%, -22% compared with BM February 2009
HMRC as a whole is well managed 11%, -16% compared with BM February 2009
Please state who discriminated against you, or harassed or bullied you over the last 12 months
Response count Your line manager 2,726 Your colleagues 1,998 Your staff 281 Other 2,175 Prefer not to say 2,093
I am proud to work for HMRC 25%, -23% compared with BM February 2009.
Tax does have to be taxing.
Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations
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.
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.
It seems that HMRC's staff survey for 2009 has highlighted, yet again, the problem of low morale.
HMRC's Capability Re-Review (published 14 December 2009 by the Cabinet Office) reported that the staff survey highlighted that only 25% of HMRC's staff were happy to work there in 2009 (worse than in 2007, when the last Capability review was performed).
The review is scathing about HMRC's senior leadership's attempts to improve morale:
"Current efforts by the senior leadership team to tackle poor staff engagement and improve visibility and communications are not working and this is affecting the productivity of staff. HMRC has a very high rate of sickness absence."
Change management is, to say the least, poor:
"Staff and stakeholders point to examples of change within HMRC that have not been well managed. It is not clear how the senior leadership team takes responsibility for and leads change within the Department.
In the 2009 staff survey, only 11 per cent of all staff and 17 per cent of Senior Civil Servants felt that change is well managed in HMRC, which is significantly below the central government benchmark."
Note: I have tried to find the 2009 staff survey on the HMRC site, but have failed. Please could someone send me a link, if it is on the site. Thanks.
Update: My thanks to a loyal reader, who has sent me a link to the staff survey. A summary will be posted in due course.
Tax does have to be taxing.
Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations
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.
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.
"Mike is a Non-Executive Director at ITV plc and Chairman of the West London Working Consortium. He has also recently been appointed Chairman of Which, a non-executive part-time post of two days a month."
I assume that none of these roles brings with it a conflict of interest?
Tax does have to be taxing.
Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations
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.
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.
UHY Hacker Young claim that, during the last six months, HMRC lodged 43% of all creditor petitions seeking to wind up companies to recover debts.
