Dedicated to the taxpayers of Britain, and the employees of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), who have to endure the monumental shambles that is HMRC.
The Register recently reported that owing to upgrade work last week and over the weekend, HMRC benefits and tax systems have been suffering lengthy downtime.
According to an inside source, who tipped The Register off, the "work hasn't gone very well, specifically in relation to changes to Cisco gear".
As noted, this all happened last week, is everything now working tickedy boo?
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.
The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) has noted that if HMRC were to work to "improve" the PAYE system (eg via making it "real time" and centralising deductions), it would face significant challenges and will require the investment of substantial amounts of time, money and attention to detail.
John Whiting, CIOT Tax Policy Director, is quoted on Shout99:
"The fundamental aim in this area has to be to get PAYE deductions to be more accurate so that the numbers of taxpayers over and underpaying each year are significantly reduced.
The idea of information flowing from employers to government as soon as circumstances change, rather than being reconciled at the end of the tax year, is a seductive one, but this proposal would be likely to load additional costs onto employers, particularly those who do not currently use electronic methods for paying their employees.
The real benefits of real time information would only be seen if the system became truly interactive and allowed three-way communication and data transfer between employers, HMRC and employees.
We are a long way from that.
The proposal for centralised deduction of tax by HMRC should reduce employers' admin burdens, but raises many other issues. Having the wages of every employee in the country passing through one huge data processor is high-risk and many people would be concerned by the prospect of their wages passing through the Government's hands.
HMRC's help and advice services would need much greater resources if they are going to have to field the enquiries about deductions currently being fielded by employers."
I cannot see the government providing HMRC with the resources it would require to make this proposal a success.
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.
The Chancellor's recent announcement about cutting child benefit for those on higher incomes, on the face of it may seem simple enough wrt how it will be administered.
However, when it comes to politicians' announcements, nothing is ever as simple as it first appears.
Accountancy Age reports that instead of child benefit payments to higher rate earners simply being stopped, the payments will in fact be "clawed back" through the PAYE and self assessment systems.
This absurd "Heath Robinson" claw back will increase the complexity of individuals' tax affairs, and add to the burden on the already overstretched HMRC.
Come on George, sharpen up!
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.
I understand from a loyal reader that currently HMRC are taking between 10-12 weeks to respond to business start ups (eg providing a newly registered start up with a UTR).
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.
A study by PCG (Professional Contractors Group) shows that 71% of its contractor members believe that HMRC should be split into a Revenue section and a Customs section, in order to create a simpler tax system.
Those of you with long memories will recall that HMRC was once (pre Brown) in fact two separate organisations (the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise). A significant number of comments posted on this site by those who work in HMRC criticise this merger, and blame some of the ills that HMRC is suffering on the forcing together of two separate bodies.
It is clear that the merger has been botched, and is still the cause of much internal friction between IR and Customs people. I personally am of the view that it may well be worthwhile splitting the two departments up even if, in the short term, that will require the taxpayer to foot the additional costs.
However, I do not think that splitting HMRC into two is a panacea for all that ails HMRC and our tax system.
The fundamental problem is that the tax system in the UK is too complex, neither the taxpayer or staff of HMRC fully understand it and the costs of administering/complying with it are excessive.
Additionally, as is evidenced by many comments on this site, HMRC management (for numerous reasons) are simply not up to the job of motivating/managing their staff.
Any splitting of HMRC needs to be accompanied by a fundamental simplification of our tax system and a radical reorganisation of the management structure/quality within HMRC.
All of that will cost money.
Sadly, I do not believe that our government has the resources or guts to take the necessary action to improve HMRC (other than some "window dressing" that will grab the headlines for a day or two).
Comments and views, as always, welcome.
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 the 31 October paper filing deadline for self assessment forms looms near, HMRC have reached out for help to the occasionally maligned (by HMRC) tax agents.
CA Mag quote Stephen Banyard, director of HMRC's Business Customer Unit:
"Agents are a key source of information for a large proportion of the SA filing population, so we would really welcome their help this year in getting those paper returns in on time."
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.
