HMRC's Auto-Wrap-Up - UPDATED

My thanks to a loyal reader who advises me that on one of HMRC's systems, if the officer is on the call too long, the system goes into 'auto-wrap-up' mode and will cut the call off if the "auto-wrap-up" is not heeded.

He has no further details.

Has anyone more details on this please?

UPDATE

Thanks for the comments thus far.

Based on the ones on the site so far (four as at the time of writing), it appears that this is bollocks (I am of the view that the tip off was genuine and that it was unintentional misinformation/misunderstanding, rather than a deliberate attempt to mislead). I will leave the post here, to see if someone comes forward with any more information that might explain it.

However, apologies for wasting your time and thanks for pointing out it that it appears to be bollocks.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

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

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HMRC Contravenes EU Law

TaxationWeb reports that HMRC has admitted that its approach to charging business VAT on some of the private fuel made available for private use contravenes EU law, and that the rules need to be changed.

In the absence of detailed mileage records to derive an accurate apportionment, HMRC has required businesses to account for VAT at least to the extent of the Road Fuel Scale Charge (even where the business has made a smaller charge for the fuel made available for private use).

This means that some businesses will have been required to pay more VAT to HMRC than the element that would correspond to their actual charge for private use.

As HMRC now admits, this contravenes the Principal VAT Directive.

In a Technical Note ( VAT: Road Fuel Scale Charges - Changing UK Law to Comply with EU Law and Streamlining the Scheme ) they confirmed:

"A deemed supply cannot be imposed where consideration is paid

Under the provisions of the PVD, where a real supply exists no deemed supply can be imposed. Consequently, UK law is wrong to impose RFSCs where a taxpayer makes a real charge for road fuel but that charge is less than cost price."

Those businesses affected by this can make a claim against HMRC going back up to 4 years.


Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

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"

HMRC The Sinking Ship - Mike Clasper Resigns

Last Tuesday I wrote the following:

"I was gemused to read an article by Tony Hetherington, in which he lambastes HMRC's executive structure.

One particular issue he raised concerned Mike Clasper (the semi invisible Chairman of HMRC). Hetherington asked HMRC whether anyone represents "ordinary PAYE taxpayers" on HMRC's board.

The answer from HMRC was rather interesting in that, for reasons best known to themselves, HMRC lied.

Quote:

"Our chairman is also chairman of Which?"

 That's grand, except that Clasper isn't chairman of Which?

Clasper is not even a member of its governing council, instead he chairs an offshoot company ( Which? Limited) that handles the commercial activities of Which?, but not Which? consumer campaigns.

Why did HMRC lie about something that could be (and was) so easily checked and proven to be wrong? "

Fortunately for HMRC it seems that it won't have to lie very much longer about Clasper's other roles.

For why?

He has resigned, although he will probably remain physically in his role until the end of this year.

This is rather ironic that he has resigned, given that I and a loyal reader were only just discussing the fact that one of the major problems that HMRC faces is its lack of continuity of policy/direction:

"Anon: Ken One of the major problems at HMRC is lack of continuity or consistent policy direction at the top. There is nothing wrong in principle with bringing in people from the private sector to provide management expertise but the reality is that the three year contracts under which much of Excom is employed results in inevitable leadership churn. 

For example, I believe the CIO Phil Pavitt's engagement is due to expire in September 2012 and he will probably be leaving HMRC this year. This means that HMRC may have a new CIO right in the middle of one of the most crucial computer projects in its history. I find it difficult to believe that Pavitt's replacement will be able to avoid the temptation to tinker with his predecessors technical strategy and may even want to do things radically different. 

The musical chairs at Board level might be great for for ambitious career free booters keen on lucrative one off gigs that add notches to their CVs but it breeds a corrosive short termist view within the organisation which means long term planning is almost impossible.

Ken: You have hit the nail on the head, in fact the problem wrt continuity is a blight that affects many gov departments (and indeed the private sector) ie:

"Five year projects being run by two your managers".

Specifically a project (eg restructuring or IT implementation) that will take many years to implement and bed in requires consistent high quality leadership.

"High quality" leaders (or rather those who are ambitious) have two year mindsets (always looking for the next step up the ladder).

These people take on projects like this on the explicit understanding that they will be promoted in two years, if they make a "success" of it.

The best way to make a "success" is to change whatever the previous managers did, blame him/her for all cock ups, and implement a 100 days "quick wins" policy etc."

What with Homer being new (and not exactly a career "success story" based on her past) Hartnett leaving and Pavitt (as per above) possibly coming the end of his contract this year, this additional departure from the high command leaves very few experienced people on the bridge of the already fatally holed HMRC.

Evidently Clasper has seen the writing on the wall wrt HMRC's future, and wants to move on to more rewarding opportunities. Anyone care to guess which "customer" of HMRC he will join, as is the norm, to act on their behalf when they are negotiating their future tax bills?

It will be interesting to see who replaces Clasper, and indeed whether Clasper leaves HMRC with some form of "golden goodbye".

I wonder who is next to go?

Rats know when ships are sinking.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

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"

HMRC Issue 12,000 Erroneous Penalty Notices

Oh dear,  it seems that (despite what we are told) Pacesetter can't quite fix everything in HMRC.

The BBC reports that approximately 12,000 people, told by HMRC that they no longer needed to fill in self-assessment tax forms, have been sent penalty notices in error.

The penalty notices from HMRC come ahead of new £10 daily fines for non-filing which start on Tuesday. Those affected were told that they no longer had to complete a self-assessment form, because their tax bill could be dealt with through PAYE.

All those on HMRC's records who did not complete a self-assessment, as expected by HMRC, received a letter in February/March asking them to contact HMRC if they felt they no longer needed to be in the self-assessment system.

Fair enough.

As a result, 130,000 people were taken out of the self-assessment process and HMRC's records were changed.

However, 12,000 of these people are now receiving penalty notices in error.

HMRC are quoted (using the obligatory Pacesetter "C word" again):

"We are very sorry and can reassure these customers that we know who they are and that this letter is incorrect - they do not owe a penalty. We are writing to all of them to apologise and to explain this error.

It is very unfortunate that this process error has taken the shine off the good news that we have taken 130,000 people out of self-assessment."

The penalty notices state that in addition to the fixed penalty of £100 for late filing, fines of £10 a day kick in from Tuesday, up to a maximum of £900.

I dare say that this snafu can be added to the whiteboards for process improvement!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

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"

Pacesetter Works!

On Wednesday I wrote the following:

"However, it is suspected that this is an excuse to cover the fact that the Solicitor's Office has a backlog of thousands of such cases.

Why has such a backlog arisen?

Step forward HMRC's much "loved" Pacesetter work process, which seemingly has caused the backlog.

Apparently endless amounts of time and money are now being spent trying to reinvent the wheel to make processes more efficient. Unfortunately all that happens is that the opposite happens, and work doesn't get done and backlogs develop ."

Well, it looks as though I was wrong. Pacesetter, according to this comment posted by a loyal reader, is in fact working very well indeed:

"Unfortunately though (for all the Pacesetter/Naysayers) across ALL depts, productivity has increased significantly year by year since it's introduction.

I'm sure Ken a simple FOI request would clarify this, rather than an observation that is 'seemingly' apparent. Unless you want to share your source? "

So you see folks I was wrong!

As were all staff across "ALL depts", who have been slagging Pacesetter off; it really does work, and we are very foolish to even to try to deny that!

No more negative comments about Pacesetter please, as these seem to be upsetting the powers that be.

Of course claiming that Pacesetter is a "success" all very much depends on what your definition of "success" and "increased productivity" is, and what KPI's are used (not all KPI's add real value to an organisation or its processes).

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

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"

HMRC Call Centre Performance

As loyal readers know, getting through to HMRC on the phone can be a tad difficult at times.

On 17 April HMRC issued a briefing note to various professional bodies (including the ICAEW) apologising for HMRC's less than stellar performance over Easter. For reasons best known to HMRC it hasn't yet posted this on its own website (as far as I can see anyway) for ordinary taxpayers to read.

Oddly enough they don't mention their own goal regarding self assessment, when HMRC officially announced:

"Under a new initiative to help its customers, HMRC has confirmed that anyone who receives a penalty, but who believes they don’t need to be in Self Assessment, can call the department on 0845 900 0444."

Anyhoo for your delectation and delight here is the full text of HMRC’s briefing note:

Our Contact Centre performance last week

A number of customers have experienced difficulty getting through to our helplines following the Easter period. We are taking urgent steps to rectify the situation as quickly as possible and response times are improving this week. We are very sorry for any inconvenience and wanted to let you know what we are doing to address the situation.

What happened?

Against much improved performance over the last few months, we have had a very challenging week following the Easter break.

In preparation for the new tax year, we update our systems over a weekend in April. These updates keep our systems in line with legislation, help lower costs and ensure that our critical systems are maintained. During the period in which these updates take place, our services are disrupted and we are not able to make changes to customer records. 

This year, we updated our systems over the Easter weekend, when demand is generally lower. Following the Easter break, we have experienced some of our busiest days. Demand from customers calling us back following the planned system update coupled with higher than anticipated levels of calls from taxpayers responding to the invitation to query the need to complete a self assessment tax return which went out with the 2011/12 notices to file.

We have also seen increases in calls to our Tax Credits helpline from customers notifying us of changes to their circumstances, as a result of previous Budget changes, further increasing our already high demand.

The 370,000 callers who rang on Tuesday 10 April was the second highest number of callers on any day in the last 12 months.

We have also been experiencing some technical telephony issues during this period, which we continue to work through.

What are we doing to improve service levels?

We have longstanding arrangements in place to redeploy staff to cope with peaks in demand. And we do this in “real time” to try and ensure that we can offer the best possible service levels we can.

In the light of the exceptional demand we have seen over the past few days, we have deployed all available trained staff within our Contact Centre network to handle additional PAYE and SA demand, as well as an additional 350 staff from processing offices around the country to help us to manage the additional calls we are receiving.

We are deploying front line managers to answer calls, and have cancelled all training time on our busiest days to ensure we are in a position to improve service levels as soon as possible.

We are already looking closely at how we can more effectively manage demand during this period in 2013/14 and for the future as part of our ongoing review processes.

What should our customers do?

These measures are already taking effect and service is improving, but demand for our PAYE and SA helplines continue to be high.

It will help us to improve further if customers with non urgent enquiries can defer their call until next week when we are confident these measures will have improved things even more.

We will keep you up to date with our progress.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

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"