Friday, 19 March 2010
Dispute Resolution
Accountancy Age reports that HMRC seems to have painted itself into a corner wrt the mountain of disputes that have piled up between itself and taxpayers.
On the one hand HMRC's mission is to maximise tax take, as such its stated litigation settlement strategy (LSS) aims is to push for a full settlement or court action if it believes it has a better than 50/50 chance of winning.
All very well.
However, the cost in terms of money, time and effort expended by HMRC (and delayed cash flow for the government's coffers) in pursuing these disputes is mounting.
Therefore some in HMRC are considering using a more "common sense" approach, namely "spinning out" the dispute resolution unit from the anti avoidance division. The mission of the new unit would be to resolve the disputes more quickly; thus improving cash flow, even if the speedier resolution means a lower tax bill.
I suspect that this common sense initiative will meet some internal "resistance" from within 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"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The headline here caught my eye as I thought there had been a resolution to the current dispute between PCS members and the bosses.
ReplyDeleteI am now gutted as I will still have to share my biscuits next Wednesday.
I thought that Common Sense and the Revenue parted company on 1st July 1916. Common Sense? you will be telling us next that HMRC bosses live in the real world
ReplyDeleteI had to laugh. I've been in dispute with HMRC for over 7 years (tax credits). They don't seem in any hurry to 'resolve' anything. The last 4 letters (I say letter there each 4 lines), say exactly the same thing and offer no answer to any question that I ask.
ReplyDeleteIts hard to see how they can resolve any dispute if they won't respond to any questions that are asked. . .
Over 7 years...... Weird. Tax credits introduced April 2003. Been in dispute about them since before they existed...........
ReplyDeleteWorking family tax credits were introduced in October 1999, child tax credits in April 2001. I know as I was getting them back then. Admittedly they were administered much more efficiently by the DHSS (as it was called then)
ReplyDelete"Tax credits were introduced in their present form in April 2003. They replaced Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC), which operated from April 1999 until March 2003. WFTC was a transitional system from the earlier benefit for working families known as Family Credit (FC), which had been in operation from 1986."
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_tax_credit
Different legislation - different scheme since April 2003. The old system operated through the tax code and is not connected to the current tax credits system.
I think the quicker the tax credit system is dropped the quicker this country can get back on it's feet.
ReplyDelete