Computer Says No

A loyal reader advises me that his firm of accountants has had a number of calls from clients who have made their personal tax payments to HMRC by BACS, before 31 January 2010.

However, they are receiving reminders from HMRC indicating that the payments have not been made.

Is this yet another problem with HMRC's computer system?

Is anyone else experiencing this problem?

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 "Unimpressed"

HMRC has let it be known that it is "unimpressed" with Clifford Chance. Seemingly the legal firm has been briefing potential tax clients that their tax affairs can be kept secret, if they approach lawyers rather than go to accountants.

An HMRC spokesman recently told the media:

"We're well aware of this and we're very unimpressed.

There will be some developments and there will be a discussion with Clifford Chance on the way."

Legal professional privilege is a basic common law right.

Were HMRC to overturn that basic right, it would be tampering with one of the main foundations of English law.

Does HMRC consider itself to be above the law?

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"

Something For The Weekend

50% of nothing is less than 40% of something.

Think about it HMG and HMRC.

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's Coding Enigma V

It seems that there is more to HMRC's coding debacle than they are prepared to admit to.

That at least is the view of Money Mail, it states that HMRC knew of the impending problems regarding tax code notices last year.

Money Mail claims to have in its possession minutes from various meetings within HMRC, that indicate HMRC were aware of problems with the new computer system in the second half of 2009.

"On September 24 last year, minutes of HMRC's Employment Consultation Forum refer to 'defects in the live system that were not apparent during testing'.

The Payroll Consultation meeting five days later talks of 'teething problems'.

It adds: 'The main issues have been around Coding Notices, age allowances for agent authorisation and work."

Any additional information on this would be welcome.

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 Bans Tax Advice

HMRC and HMG are a tad short of cash these days, as such they are desperate to maximise the tax take.

Nothing annoys HMG and HMRC more than tax advisers who help people legitimately reduce their tax burden.

Therefore it should come as no surprise to learn that there is some draft legislation in the offing that aims to clamp down on tax advisers.

The rather interesting point about this legislation is the definition of what constitutes a "tax adviser/agent". Seemingly it is not just the media popular image of some sharp suited City legal eagle quaffing brandies, as he dispenses advice at the rate of £500 per hour, it also includes anyone who may offer even a small morsel of advice (that aims to lessen HMRC's tax take) even if this advice is for free.

You don't believe me?

Well, take a look here:

"Tax agent
2 (1) A person is a tax agent if the person assists another person (a 'client') with
the client's tax affairs.
(2) A person may be a tax agent even if—
(a) the assistance is given free of charge,
(b) the assistance is given otherwise than in the course of business,
(c) the assistance is given indirectly to the client or at the request of someone other than the client, or
(d) the assistance is not given specifically to assist with the client's tax affairs, but the person giving the assistance knows it will be used, or is likely to be used, for that purpose.
(3) Assistance with a client's tax affairs includes assistance with any document that is likely to be relied on by HMRC to determine the client’s tax position.
(4) Assistance with a client's tax affairs also includes—
(a) advising a client in relation to tax, and
(b) acting or purporting to act as agent on behalf of a client in relation to
tax.
(5) If a client is assisted by more than one individual in a firm or business, each
individual may be regarded as a separate tax agent."

Does this matter?

Well it may well do.

Tax experts are warning that another piece of HMRC's master plan ("Working with Tax Agents: the next stage") when linked to the above could see any individual who gives anyone tax advice, that leads to a tax loss to the Treasury, as guilty of a new offence of deliberate wrongdoing, which carries a fine of between £1,500 to £50,000.

Nichola Ross Martin is warning that organisations such as the Citizens Advice Bureau, or the tax media industry would have to stop providing advice around tax issues for fear of being fined.

John Whiting, head of tax policy at the CIoT, is none too happy either. He has told Accountancy Age:

"As I read it, you or anyone saying 'invest in an ISA and save money' could technically come under the wrongdoing [rules].

The CIoT is totally supportive of HMRC getting at fraudulent tax agents, but this opens everybody up. I'm sure it's not [HMRC's] intention but it's difficult to read it any other way."

Nichola Ross Martin, on her website, expands the issue:

"The rules apply to all tax agents, but the term 'tax agent' is extended and now includes anyone who gives advice for free, and so will hit charities, such as the Citizen's Advice Bureau, Tax Aid, and Chartered Institute of Taxation's (CIOT) Tax Help for Older People, and apply to other businesses outside the accounting and legal professions such as Radio and TV, newspapers, tax publishers, websites, and tax forums. The fine will be levied at individuals, and so a business could find that all its employees are fined too.

Andrew Meeson, Vice President of the Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT) says, 'The parallel with anti-terror legislation which enables over-zealous constables to arrest tourists photographing Westminster Abbey is too striking to ignore; HMRC must not go down a similar route by painting the definition of tax agent far too inclusively.' "

HMRC recognise that they may well encounter some well deserved resistance to this lurch towards a police state

"para 2.11 A significant proportion was very critical about HMRC’s service standards and perceived lack of accountability. There was a strong sense that HMRC should not be seeking new powers which applied to tax agents until it had got its own house in order."

"Police state!"

Surely I exaggerate I hear to wail?

No, I do not exaggerate!

Governments, by their very nature, seek to justify their existence and increase their power over the people who elect them.

This costs money.

During times of plenty, tax revenues abound and the populace is relatively docile; thus the government is able to wield power, and build its pet quangos with little or no resistance.

During times of recession and war people become less docile, and tax revenues fall.

Governments, during these times of recession and war, seek to squeeze taxpayers for every last penny in order to stay in power. Governments will use all means at their disposal to increase the tax take.

By classifying any form of "tax advice" as a potential crime, the government has in effect sought to block people's fundamental right to organise their financial affairs in the most tax efficient way possible. In other words the government seeks to turn the population into docile milch cows, whose only purpose to "feed" the government.

HMRC and HMG will of course deny that this is the case.

But they would wouldn't they?

Do you really trust them not to do whatever they think they can get away with?

This is a step towards dictatorship.



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"

Porkies?

The Telegraph claims that HMRC have made a very small U turn wrt their policy on the electronic submission of the Employer Annual Return for businesses with under 50 employees.

HMRC has told employers they could be fined up to £3K if they break HMRC's "law" (I thought parliament made the law?) and submit data on paper.

However, following protests from hard pressed small businesses HMRC now say that employers with between 1 and 5 employees have one more year to comply.

The Telegraph claims that this is a U turn.

HMRC claim that the details were on the HMRC website all along.

The Telegraph cannot find them.

Is HMRC telling porkies here?

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"

Smiley!

The Mail on Sunday has caused a wee bit of a furore in the reserved ranks of the HMRC.

The paper reports that an anonymous group of HMRC staff posted a photo of themselves on Faecesbook wearing cardboard smiley faces.

Unfortunately for their hapless staff, HMRC ban employees from uploading material to social networking websites (HMRC worry about their "brand value").

To make matters worse, the above video was also posted onto the same Faecesbook page.

A witch hunt is now on.

The page now seems to have been taken down.

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"

Flawed Tool!

The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG) are marginally unimpressed with HMRC's new website tool ("Do I Qualify?") that is meant to calculate whether an individual qualifies for tax credits.

LITGR claim that HMRC's tool is flawed, and that it produces the wrong answer in many cases.

LITRG claim that errors appear when income for 2007/08 is less than the current year. The answer given appears to be based on the current year figure instead of the previous year's.

LITRG also claims that the tool does not account for those with disabilities, or those who might be entitled to the 50 plus element of working tax credit and people who work 30 hours a week.

HMRC have partially addressed the problem, by adding an extra step for those with disabilities.

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's Coding Enigma IV

Despite attempts by HMRC to pass the burden of responsibility for identifying coding errors onto the hapless taxpayer, the buck cannot be so easily passed.

Accountancy Age reports that UK200Group (the foremost mutual association of quality assured independent accountants and lawyers serving the SME business sector) has delivered a scathing assessment of HMRC's incompetence and hypocrisy over this issue.

They are quoted:

"The new system has wrongly calculated how much employers should deduct from salaries, while company cars and private health insurance could be taxed twice."

Also, as noted on this site last week, more than 500,000 people who are claiming a state pension for the first time during the current tax year could have too much tax deducted from their income, and married couples and civil partners aged 76 or over could lose an allowance worth nearly £700.

David Whiscombe, a director of BKL Tax and a member of the UK200Group tax panel, really lets loose at HMRC:

"Every person and every organisation makes mistakes from time to time, but there are two things which are disquieting in this story.

The first is that HMRC say that 'the transition to the new system has brought to light some discrepancies in our existing records'.

This indicates a worrying lack of testing before data was switched over to the new system.

As it is, they don't seem to have been aware of the possibility of a problem until they started getting complaints from the public.

The second problem is HMRC's reaction, which is broadly that taxpayers should check the coding notices carefully for themselves and tell HMRC.

Actually, HMRC, just correcting your errors when they are pointed out to you isn't good enough. When a taxpayer makes a mistake, HMRC are increasingly looking to exact penalties.

So what about penalising HMRC for making errors – perhaps by providing for automatic compensation for any taxpayer affected by the mistake? Or do 'penalties for careless errors' only work one way?"

HMRC responded:

"HMRC acknowledges that a significant number of coding notices are incorrect because the data carried forward from the previous PAYE system does not match the data received from employers.

We are undertaking a review of those cases which are at most risk of error and will issue revised notices of coding to the individuals as soon as possible. This work is being prioritised so that we deal first with those individuals who are most vulnerable to the changes in their code numbers."

I assume that this is the manual review being conducted by staff (up to management level) over the next 6 weeks, that a loyal reader mentioned in a recent comment?

Had HMRC followed good practice wrt new systems implementation (eg parallel running), this mess would not have happened.

As ever the taxpayer ends up bearing the burden of HMRC's incompetence.

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"

Front Page News II

I see it is also in the Scottish Express too by gad!

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"

Front Page News

One of my loyal readers asked why the Private Eye story about Robert Bowering being employed by HMRC, in spite of the fact that he was bankrupted by HMRC and still owes them money, was not front page news.

Your wish has now been granted!

It is now on the front page of the Scottish Sun.

Quote:

"A source at Centre 1 said:

'News of his court case has been the talk of the office.How he managed to land this job so soon after being made bankrupt is a mystery'."

Quite!

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's Coding Enigma III

HMRC's coding problems continue apace.

It has emerged that, on top of the millions of incorrect tax codes that are being sent out by HMRC, HMRC are double taxing the value of benefits such as car and health insurance provided by employers.

Married couples and civil partners aged 76 or more might lose an allowance worth nearly £700.

Additionally over 500,000 people, who started claiming their state pension this tax year, could automatically have too much tax deducted from their income next tax year.

Went the day well at HMRC?

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"

You Need Friends

Private Eye have an interesting report about the manager of HMRC's East Kilbride call centre (Robert Bowering).

Seemingly, before being appointed in June 2009, he had been made bankrupt (to the tune of £75K) by...errmmm...HMRC!

Sadly for HMRC it has been deemed unlikely that they will ever recover one penny of this.

How did he get his job (paid at higher than the normal rate) then?

Easy, he is friends with HMRC's director of contact centres, Linda Maslen. They were even linked on Faecesbook, until the Eye started looking into it!

Impressive isn't it?

Have no fear though, HMRC told the Eye that "correct procedures had been followed".

It saddens me to see that there are a number of people attracted to working for the state, and its many organs, who like to hide behind "procedures" when anything goes wrong.

These people are effectively brain dead, and are incapable of intuitive/creative thought or acting with initiative outwith a set of rigid written procedures. Their primary function is to ensure that when the shit hits the fan they can claim that they followed procedures, thus ensuring they are not blamed.

Here is some free advice to these people:

1 Procedures cannot cover every eventuality.

2 In the unlikely event that procedures could ever cover every eventuality, the outcome resulting from rigidly following those procedures may still well be sub optimal.

Certain circumstances require people and organisations to look outside a rigid procedural framework and ask certain basic questions, eg "if we take this action how will it look to others (eg taxpayers) outside of our organisation?".

Clearly HMRC did not ask themselves this question.

Here is the full article, unedited:

"AS IF a National Audit Office report last month detailing 44 million missed telephone calls last year (47 percent of those made) didn't pose enough questions over HM Revenue & Customs' 'contact centres', the Eye has discovered some very unusual arrangements for choosing the people to run them.

HMRC's first call centre, and still one of its largest, is in East Kilbride, just outside Glasgow. Since June last year it has been managed by a certain Robert Bowering, a call centre veteran with firms including HSBC and call centre outsourcing firm beCogent Ltd. But his appointment at HMRC was far from his first encounter with the taxman.

At Linlithgow sheriff court in March, just three months before he started working at HMRC, Bowering had been made bankrupt… by HMRC!

Bowering's debt, the origins of which are not known, stands at £75,545, of which the Accountant in Bankruptcy (Scotland's insolvency service) officially estimates it will recover, er, precisely £0. So how did a man made bankrupt over unpaid tax land a job advising everybody else on their tax bills?

Mr Bowering was brought in - on higher pay than the normal level for his grade - by a personal friend of his: the department's director of contact centres, Linda Maslen. Until the Eye became interested, the two could be found as each other's 'friend' on their Facebook pages. They had worked at HSBC's firstdirect telephone banking business at the same time in the 1990s.

HMRC insists that, although Maslen had 'advocated' her chum's appointment, the correct procedures had then been followed taking into account 'the risks posed by appointing someone who is insolvent, and the organisation's ability to manage those risks'.

So that's all right, then."

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"

Hartnett Places HMRC Above The Law

Fresh from his junket to Washington, Dave Hartnett continues to believe that he bestrides the world like a colossus and that all should tremble before him.

His latest "battle against evil" will, seemingly, be waged against lawyers.

Hartnett is, as we know, fixated on the "evil" people who try to avoid tax (despite the fact that avoidance is not only legal, but logical).

Hartnett is extremely angry that lawyers are offering tax avoidance advice to clients. This advice is protected by legal privilege (ie HMRC can't get their hands on the lawyers' files, as they now can do with accountants).

Hartnett wants legal privilege to be overturned when it comes to HMRC. In other words, he wants to place HMRC above the law!

Quite an ambitious little civil servant isn't he?

Beware little men with big ambitions.

Why such evangelical zeal from a man who has, until the last few years, been absolutely invisible?

The answer is simple, some moons ago Hartnett butt kissed Brown and promised him that all his financial needs could be met if only HMRC were given more power. He gave Gordon a glimpse of a future overflowing with honey, derived from unlimited revenues harvested by HMRC's new powers.

The trouble is Hartnett's promises have not come to fruition. People are not prepared to kowtow and roll over to play dead to the government's desire to milk them dry, and are either leaving the country or ensuring that they pay as little tax as legally possible. Thus Hartnett is left looking rather foolish.

It the last act of a desperate man to try to place himself/his organisation above the law.

Hartnett should remember that legal professional privilege is a fundamental human and democratic right, and a cornerstone in the administration of justice. Tamper with that, and we move one step further forward towards dictatorship.

Hartnett though is more interested in saving his own skin, rather than preserving the rule of law or the rights of the British people.

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"

Online Filing

My thanks to a loyal reader who sent me a copy of a letter that he has sent to HMRC, concering probelms he has had trying to file his tax return online.

Relatively "small beer" compared with the other issues in HMRC being reported, and due to come out!

"Dear Sirs,

Following HMRC recommendations in SA150-59 (How to fill in your Tax Return) I opted to file on-line.

This document makes it clear that the on-line filing deadline is 31 January 2010.

Your reminder letter dated ** Dec 2009 (received 3 January 2010) underlines this date. At the end of the final paragraph on page 2 the letter adds that 7 days are required to receive an activation pin.

Neither HMRC TV publicity nor any of the HMRC Tax Return documentation mentions this requirement.

Not arriving until 3 January 2010 this letter still allowed 21 days for filing.

I registered on-line and waited 7 days for the activation pin without result.

On ** January I called the on-line help desk. I was advised to wait another week.
(call-ref:***)

Concerned at the continued non-delivery of the activation pin, on ** January (13 days later) I called the on-line help desk. (case ref:***).

On 27 Jan I was informed to wait a further 3 days and then apply for a new activation pin which will be sent in a further 7 days, which will arrive while I am away from this address **-** Feb 2010.

I have made every effort to follow HMRC recommendations and instructions to the letter. Due to problems in HMRC this has been without result. I therefore expect that any penalty will be waived in full.

Yours faithfully..."

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"

Liar Liar!

My thanks to a loyal reader who has advised me that this weekend many hundreds of child benefit customers have received letters from HMRC re child benefit.

Apparently these letters give client details. However, on page 2 of each letter the details provided are those of someone other than the intended addressee.

The information disclosed includes such matters as bank details and amounts being paid.

This is of course a breach of the Data Protection Act.

I am further advised that HMRC call centre advisers have been told that if "customers" ring in to complain about these letters, then the "customer" should be lied to and told that their letter was an accident and that no other have complained about such a mistake.

Seemingly, as at the end of last Saturday, HMRC have recorded quite a number of calls complaining about this data breach.

One final point, the Civil Service Code dictates that employees must be honest at all times. Unsurprisingly many advisers are not happy about being told to lie.

Updates on this story would be most welcome.

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"

I Don't Believe It!

Is this true?

"Well, as a member of HMRCs floundering Field Farce ( sorry, Field Force ) I was astonished to be told that, due to cut-backs in budgets, myself and twenty of my colleagues were forbidden from making calls for an astonishing 6 weeks recently. We had absolutely NOTHING to do instead. So we did nothing for 6 weeks. Managers aware of this, staff furious. You couldn't make it up......."

Even I am gobsmacked at this!

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"

Deadline

I hope everyone managed to finish inputting their online tax declarations before the end of yesterday (deadline for submissions)?

Submissions after that date will attract an automatic £100 fine, and late payments will be subject to interest charges.

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"