Personal Details

In May I wrote about a loyal reader who dropped me a note concerning HMRC changing her address details (without her permission), and sending her ex husband her tax credit summary for 2012/2013.

She has sent me an update wrt the situation, which she has given me permission to publish, quite shockingly HMRC have managed to do exactly the same thing again:

"My ex husband has moved address....and as a result, yet again HMRC have sent him my tax credits documents. 

When is this nightmare going to end? 

Totally at the end of my tether with it now.

I've still not even received a response to my first letter and on 23/06 I wrote to them again as my NHS Exemption card was sent to my ex, then on 19/06 I received contact from my local housing benefit department to enquire whether I had moved. 

It turns out that they had been notified by HMRC that I had moved out of the area. After a bit of further probing I was able to determine that for the second time, they had been given my ex husband's address again. 

 I'm not sure how much more of this I can take."

Views and comments, as always, are welcome!

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"

Muddled Records

My thanks, and commiserations, to a loyal reader who alerted me to the fact that he is trying to pay HMRC a little over £1K that HMRC claim is owed to them by his firm.

Unfortunately HMRC's telephone payment line people can't help, because there is no record on their system that any money is owed; and yet letters are still being sent demanding payment.

Any suggestions anyone?

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 Pitches For Creative Agency

HMRC will tomorrow (Friday) hold a pitch, via the Government Procurement Scheme, to find a creative agency for its annual campaigns around self-assessment and tax credits.

The winning agency will also create adverts and campaigns for other causes that arise during the term of the contract.

Campaign reports that ten agencies on HMRC's new government creative solutions roster have been approached.

HMRC recently worked with M&C Saatchi, on tax credits campaigns, and WCRS, which it hired in May 2012 to work on a range of ad hoc projects.

WCRS claims that the "inner peace" campaign that it created for HMRC led to a record 9.6 million people sending in their tax return in on time, representing 92.9% of people eligible for self-assessment.

This is an ideal opportunity for those loyal readers with a creative bent to come up with their own campaign ideas for future HMRC campaigns. Please feel free to submit your ideas (openly or privately), and I will feature the best at some stage in the future.

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 Fails On Key Metrics

The National Audit Office (NAO) has found that the delivery of HMRC's real-time information (RTI) project is over-budget, not fully resilient, has not yet qualified for financial accreditation and may miss its roll-out targets.

No surprises there then!

The NAO report into HMRC’s 2012-2013 accounts noted that the cost of implementing RTI is £356.6M (£115M over budget).

Oddly HMRC has not budgeted for any extra costs from any new issues that may arise.

The report also notes that the timetable for implementation is “challenging”.

Bizarrely RTI went live without full financial accreditation.

For good measure HMRC has chosen to not develop RTI with full resiliency because of the cost implications and because the PAYE service could be operated in an emergency without RTI.

All in all a fine example of how not to manage a systems upgrade!

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"

VAT Debt Falls To £2.5BN

Economia reports that businesses owe HMRC around £2.5BN in unpaid VAT, this is down on last year's figure of £2.7BN.

This fall in debt comes about as HMRC has doubled its use of distraint (10,577 times in the year ending March 2012, up from 5,520 over the same period in 2011).

HMRC has also more than doubled its spend on external debt collectors to almost £13M, according to data provided by HMRC to financial provider Syscap.

In distraint cases HMRC staff visit a company's premises without warning to collect unpaid taxes. The company then has five days to pay before major assets such as cars and computers can be removed.

Philip White, CEO of Syscap, said that HMRC has become “increasingly draconian” in its approach, through fines and seizing assets.

Has HMRC become more draconian in its approach, or is it that companies have been "pushing the envelope" further wrt delaying payments etc?

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"

Man-Marking

During a debate in the House of Commons last Thursday about HMRC David Gauke used a phrase that I have never heard in relation to tax collection, namely "man-marking".

He is quoted by The Register:

“I should explain that HMRC works, with regard to large businesses, by putting in place CRMs — customer relationship managers. Their role is essentially to man-mark the most complex and high-risk taxpayers. In recent years that approach has proved to be effective in getting money in.

HMRC secured £8bn of additional compliance yield from large businesses in 2012-13, and more than £23bn in the past three years. It is an approach that has been endorsed by the OECD.”

When asked by Margaret Hodge about why HMRC hadn’t launched any cases against internet companies such as Amazon and Google, Gauke cited the British variation of the "fifth" (ie taxpayer confidentiality) saying that there was “no way to know what action HMRC has taken with regard to individual companies”.

“One of the difficulties that HMRC has is that it is bound by taxpayer confidentiality. It cannot give a running commentary to this House on the action that it takes, but the numbers demonstrate that HMRC is effective in getting money in.

“What we do know is that it has got billions of pounds in additional yield as a consequence of the action that it takes with large businesses as a whole. With reference to HMRC’s performance across the board, additional yield is being achieved year after year, and this Government have provided resources to increase the yield on evasion and avoidance.”

He graciously admitted that HMRC can only pursue companies for tax that they actually owed under the law (as opposed to pursuing them for tax that they don't owe).

Who is responsible for passing the laws which HMRC and the companies they deal with have to follow?

That would be our elected representatives!


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"