HMRC's recently launched charter promises to "put mistakes right as soon as we can".
What does "as soon as we can" actually mean?
One month?
No!
Two months?
No!
Six months?
No!
HMRC in fact seem to regard "as soon as we can" as being a "paltry" 13 months!
The figures come from the adjudicator's office, which handles complaints against HMRC.
That is the average time (some hapless self employed taxpayers are in fact having to wait up to 18 months) it now takes HMRC/the adjudicator to communicate to taxpayers the outcome of complaints against HMRC.
The appalling lag in communication appears to be down to a rise in complaints about tax credit awards, and staff shortages.
There is a solution for taxpayers, caught in the bureaucratic mire of HMRC and the adjudicator's orifice, build a Tardis and travel to the future to find out the result of the case.
Would the cost of such a capital investment be tax deductible I wonder?
Tax does have to be taxing.
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Yes and it's going to get worse,as this Govt and any future Govt after the election takes the axe to the public sector.
ReplyDeleteMore for less management scream the new mantra,but there comes a point where you only get less for less.
HMRC has lost approx 20,000 posts,and the cull aint done yet and because they won't pay redundancy the vast bulk of staff leaving are experienced staff retiring early to get away from all the shit,sorry new working practices to make us more efficient to do the work with less staff.They are fooling no-one
Agree with above. Thousands have left too because the whole place is a fucking mess and HMRC decided not to invest in their staff anymore after the merger. A colleague who worked beside me left after six years and he simply wasn't replaced. The management ignored the fact that he was ever their at all ,as him leaving was one more figure to add to the cull target, and the lower grades just had to deal with it ourselves.
ReplyDeleteThese management cunts were warned but they couldn't be arsed and thats why data goes missing, post is unopened, morale has dropped and ASAP is 13 months.
You reap what you sow.
"You reap what you sow."
ReplyDeleteabsolutely. The government seems to think that because they are getting less money (due to higher unemployment) that the country needs to cut Government related staff.
Thats purely not true and they need to stop it. Councils can't run with only 60% of the staff, HMRC cannot run and moving Government department staff to "central" offices does not help streamline services and in fact cost money due to the systems/buildings that need to be provided.
Government deparments may not be organised or efficient as they could be but just cutting numbers of staff is not the answer.
As a son of the Manse, the ineffable Gordon should know this.
ReplyDelete"He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind:
and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart." (Proverbs 11:29)
I do love it when the middle class moan about the amount of time it takes to deal with post, when it's generally known that the 'repayment' accountants like to play a cat and mouse game over the 31 January deadline (9 months afer the end of the tax year) and try to get their clients penalties removed because 'we' didn't provide their clients pay and tax details to them when they asked us to do so for a large list of their clients on 30th January (their client obviously thought that the warning to keep their P60/P45/CIS statements in a safe place in case it's needed for a tax return didn't apply to them) therefore it's all HMRC's fault. It's usually the same accountants that state "If HMRC were a business your would have gone bust by now"
ReplyDeletethen stating we should have less people to do the work (which can often mean going though someones records for 5 years or more for verification that we have a complete tax records the person 'can't remember that far back' because they've signed up for several agencies with overlapping employments most of which seem unable to submit correct end of year records to us.)
In fact, most 'complaints' seem to originate from en English persons inability to grasp basic English and/or simple concepts.
An example, someone phoned me to complain that HMRC hadn't given them 40p per mile on their tax relief claim. I explained to them that they were only entitled to claim tax relief from us, not the whole 40p. Their argument was "Well, my employer told me that I could, so who is lying, them or you?" Well I couldn't state that the employer was lying, so I had to say there was perhaps some misunderstanding, they then retorted "Well what are you going to do about it?"
There are several things wrong with this question.
1. It is a perfect allusion to the 'entitlement culture' that this country seems to have i.e. this person didn't get what they want, so someone has to be blamed.
2. If their employer really did tell this person they could claim everything from us, then this employer has to be a class 1 asshole by
2a. not paying some part of this person work related travel expenses and
2b. telling an outright lie (I cannot put ignorance in to the equation as this employer obviously had to know how the claims worked in the first place).
3. The whole line of questioning seems to rely on a logical fallacy based on this persons misunderstanding
I had to restate that we have followed the law and it's the same for everyone. The person then threatened to go to her MP about it. I lost all sympathy for this person at this point and stated they were welcome to do so, but as nothing has been done in error, the MP wouldn't be able to help. The person then asked "Well where is this all written down that it's only tax relief?". I then advised her to look at the next form she submitted and look at the title... "Tax relief for expenses of employment year ending 5 April XXXX".