The Making Tax Digital Theatre

Standing room only for @MarkPurdueTax & @Garyeazico talk on the @HMRCgovuk #MakingTaxDigital pilot @Accountex #Accountex2017 pic.twitter.com/2MGa7GpOdm

— Tax Accounting UK (@TaxAccountingUK) May 11, 2017

A very popular show, it will run and run!

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"

Football Is Flavour of The Month at HMRC

The Telegraph reports that the investigation into the tax affairs of professional football clubs by HMRC is scrutinising the basic salaries paid to academy scholars to decide whether they meet minimum wage regulations.

HMRC is understood to be investigating whether the number of hours a week that scholars spend training and playing games equates pro rata to the government minimum wage, set at £3.50 an hour for an apprentice.

Clearly football is flavour of the month at HMRC.

I assume HMRC "away days" to football clubs/games etc are now off the menu?

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"

Trouble In Hull

My thanks to a loyal reader who posted this comment the other day, warning about a possible "AO dump" in Hull:

"So, Gerry Dorby visited Cherry Court in Hull a week or two ago.

The first floor of the building holds the RIS section, and all ten or so teams were recently "re-structured" because, officially, Jenni Cooper had some problem with too many teams, but in reality it was done because A) She wanted to leave people doing something she'd ordered before taking maternity leave, and B) to split up people who were seen as talking too much.

When Dorby came, he noted that he wanted as many AOs "out the door" as soon as possible, adding that the floor was "far too noisy" still.

This was on a Friday when there were, apparently, very few people in.

He is also making it his mission to get production up - even though it already as high as it can be, I've been told..."

It is not clear as to whether the HMRC AO "dump" is redundancy or moving staff to the DWP.

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"

Adjudicator Backlog of Tax Cases

The Mail reports that the Adjudicator's Office, which rules on HMRC complaints, has a backlog of 1,028 cases. 

It settled just 970 in 2015-16 — half the 1,850 that were dealt with the year before.

The adjudicator said that while more than half of cases were dealt with in six months, and most within a year, 66 waited for more than a year. 

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 Online System Can't Cope

The Scotsman reports that HMRC’s own online tax calculator for self assessment is wrong, meaning people could be paying too much tax if they fall into certain income brackets.

Two groups of taxpayers are being overcharged if they file their tax returns online:

1 People who earn less than £16,000 a year – for example, from employment earnings, pension or rental income – and who exceed the Personal Savings Allowance, which is £1,000 a year for basic rate taxpayers and £500 a year for higher rate taxpayers.

2 Those who have total taxable income of between £27,000 and £32,000 a year, and who also receive enough income in the form of dividends to take them over the additional rate tax threshold of £150,000.

HMRC has admitted that its online systems are not able to cope with these two groups, and advises people who fall in these categories to file paper returns.

HMRC state that the problem won't be fixed this year.


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"

Tribunal Quashes HMRC Fine

My thanks to a loyal reader for passing on this recent tribunal case, in which HMRC's £300 fine is quashed and HMRC come out of it looking like idiots.

FERGUS ANSTOCK Appellant 

- and - 

THE COMMISSIONERS FOR HER MAJESTY’S REVENUE & CUSTOMS Respondents

"The Notice relied upon by the respondents is so poorly thought through and so inadequately drafted that it fails the requirement of certainty and precision, which is a fundamental requirement ( as explained above ) .

In this context it is also worth pointing out that the requirements made of the recipient of a Notice must be discernible from within the four corners of the Notice itself unless some other document is specifically incorporated by reference.

It will not do for it to be argued, as it was argued before us, that some of the details about requested information might have been gleaned by looking at the earlier correspondence. That might be so; it might not be so. However, that is not a legitimate way to proceed because the Notice must be self - contained and must be construed to establish precisely what information and/or documents it properly requires the recipient to provide.

A taxpayer cannot be in breach of a Notice unless it is a valid notice. By “valid” we mean one which meets the requirements of certainty and precision, which we have discussed above.

For the two separate reasons that we have set out above , this appeal is allowed and the £300 penalty quashed."

'Nuff said!

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"