Inquiry Launched

Politicians, fed up with the ongoing cock ups emanating from HMRC (and doubtless worried that some of the shit will, quite deservedly, splatter back on them) have done what politicians always do under such circumstances, they have announced a formal inquiry into HMRC.

A Treasury sub-committee will examine the effectiveness of HMRC and look at "how HMRC is doing its job, whether it can do it better, and what the future holds".

Dame Lesley Strathie, the "beloved and respected" CEO of HMRC, will be called to give evidence.

Ironically there has already been an inquiry into HMRC, the results of which were published this year. That inquiry found that morale was at rock bottom (HMRC are in fact the unhappiest civil servants in Whitehall).

Anyhoo, since then there has been the PAYE debacle and the announcement of further cuts in HMRC's staff etc. The politicians have realised that the government/state in all its many forms (if it is to continue to function) needs money (in the form of taxes), and that HMRC are the means by which that money is collected.

A catastrophic failure of HMRC, its IT systems, or a protracted general HMRC strike could cause a seizure at the very heart of government as the money needed to run the country is left uncollected/processed. The politicians would, quite rightly, be blamed for much of the ensuing chaos.

Therefore the politicians are panicking, and will look at:

- HMRC's performance
- whether it is delivering its key aims
- the implications of HMRC's spending review settlement
- whether it is "able to deliver" the government's aims on tax avoidance/evasion
- whether reforms to the PAYE system are necessary;
- what HMRC's priorities should be for the future.

Good luck with that 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"

The Road To Dictatorship

Those who believe that the UK's tax legislation, and associated administrative burden, cannot become much more complex/onerous may need to be reminded that the EU is pushing to have a right to dictate the tax policies and rates of member states.

Accountancy Age reports that concerns are mounting over the transfer of tax-raising powers to the European Union.

Aside from the administrative burden such powers would bring, the damage to the economy and our democracy of a "one size fits all" dictated by unelected Brussels bureaucrats approach would be incalculable.

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"

Question

The deadline for paper based tax returns for tax year end 2010 is midnight 31 October, taxpayers who fail to meet this deadline face an automatic £100 fine.

Given the backlog of several weeks of unopened post within HMRC, how does HMRC know whether those paper tax returns sent in the weeks/days running up to the deadline were received before/after the 31 October deadline?

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"

Sunday Service Cancelled

HMRC have announced that, as from 29 November 2010, Sunday call centre staff will be redeployed to peak periods during the rest of the week (ie there will be no "Sunday Service").

HMRC state that this will improve service by "driving down waiting times and providing a more effective service for all."

Fair enough, if it works.

Please let me know if an improvement in service does actually occur.

Read more: http://www.accountancyage.com/accountancyage/news/2272113/hmrc-scraps-sunday-caller#ixzz13SDpqQSp
Accountancy Age - Finance, business and accountancy news, features and resources. Claim your free subscription today.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"

Debt Collection

My thanks to a loyal reader who pointed me to Accounting Web, which published a query submitted by a tax agent on behalf of a client who had received a visit from a "very aggressive" HMRC debt collector.

One of the responses to the query gives step by step advice on what to do if faced with this situation, and I have published it unedited as it may be helpful to others:

Query:

"In May of this year a client submitted their P35 to HMRC, but missed off the box 28 figure, CIS deductions suffered. They then realised their mistake and asked us what to do. We sent in an amended P35 and covering letter for them, explaining what had happened and showing the CIS deductions correctly (this was in July).

A few weeks ago, they received a demand from HMRC for the amounts owing. They rang HMRC and explained the situation and we also rang them and was told "we are 3-4 months behind with the post".

On Friday, they received a visit from a very aggressive debt collector demanding assets or a cheque for the amount thye think is owed. It was explained to them that an amended P35 had been submitted and we were awaiting processing of this.

She claimed that to be "nonsense" and that she "wanted their money now". In the end she has given 7 days "grace" to get the revised return processed. We faxed a copy to the employers unit on Friday afternoon and have called them this morning. They cannot promise that it will be processed in time at all.

Where does this leave us? We have the PAYE team way behind with their work and the debt collectors threatening to seize assets if their own people don't process by the end of this week!

Is there anything we can do to either call off the debt collection or push through the amended P35 more quickly?"

One of the responses from an AA reader:

"1) File an immediate formal complaint. Make the complaint by telephone and confirm in writing.

2) Contact the relevant Debt Management Office and file a complaint regarding the disgraceful and utterly unacceptable attitude displayed by the officer who called.

3) Instruct your client NOT to open the door to these clowns - without a court order they have no powers to force entry or to seize goods, and if they refuse to leave when told to they are open to arrest.

4) Point out that by demanding monies which they know, or ought to know, are not due they are committing offences under s40 of The Administration of Justice Act 1970, and, under s2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

5) For a small fee your local County Court given proof that these monies are not owed, and that HMRC are acting without even opening their post and processing mail before acting, will grant an ex parte emergency injunction against HMRC forbidding them from continuing with collection until the returns etc have been properly processed.

6) Once HMRC confirm that no tax is actually owed, file proceedings on behalf of the client for damages and compensation for distress caused, and for your own costs in the case, keeping the total claim to less than £5,000 as this keeps it in the small claims court (fast track)."

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"

A Little List

In line with the government's aims for "greater transparency", HMRC have published a list of their top 44 earners (in terms of base pay) in 2010.

Steve Lamey, director general of benefits and credits, is the highest earner on the list with a base pay of £205K.

The full list (on a rather awkward to read spreadsheet - you have to click on some of the cells to actually read the full name/job title) can be accessed via this link HMRC top pay.

Note, the list does not appear to take into account bonus payments, pension benefits etc. Additionally, certain job titles do not have a name by them; it is not clear as to whether this means that the post is vacant, or the person holding that post is "shy".

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"

Strike

As we enter the SOBER* decade, HMRC will not be immune from the cuts announced by George Osborne.

According to Accountancy Age HMRC's budget of £3.5BN in 2010/2011 will fall to £3.2BN by 2014/15, with a loss of around 13,000 jobs. Some of the media claim this is a 15% cut, but my calculator comes up with less than 10%.

Please could someone enlighten me as to where the 15% comes from?

To further confuse matters, some sections of the media talk of 25% efficiency savings (on top of the 15%) to be achieved by improving IT contracts etc.

Does anyone actually have a clue as to what the fark is going on?

Anyhoo, 10%, 15% or 25%, unsurprisingly the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) is none too happy, and have warned that there will be strikes.

Suffice to say, the quality of "customer" (ie taxpayer) service is bound to decline further.

However, the good news for HMRC staff is that Lesley Strathie is "batting on their side". The Guardian has leaked a letter that she has sent to staff:

"I know how tough this autumn has been for all of us; not least because of the enormous scrutiny we've been under recently in relation to PAYE.

We now have a lot more clarity about what the future holds for us and I want to put on record how much I, and all my ExCom colleagues, appreciate your dedication and hard work."

Sorted!

*
Savings
Orderly
Budgets
Equitable
Rebalancing

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"

Check The Numbers

The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG) has estimated that approximately 1.4 million people will receive a P800 document from HMRC (advising people that they have underpaid their tax for 2008-09 and 2009-10) before Christmas.

However, John Andrews (the Chairman of LITRG), very wisely points out that just because HMRC has issued an underpayment calculation "doesn't mean to say the figures it shows are right".

In other words, as with all tax communications, please make sure that you check that the numbers are correct.

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"

Clueless

Last week Dame Lesley Strathie (CEO of HMRC) admitted to the Public Accounts Committee that its figure of almost 6 million people who had paid too little or too much tax in the last two years had been an estimate, and could change in the coming months.

Dame Lesley admitted that approximately 10 million taxpayers' records had yet to be processed, meaning more errors will come to light.

MPs asked Dame Lesley as to why the issue wrt over/underpayments had only been made public last month.

Dame Lesley said that publishing any earlier would have caused concern, and would have left HMRC swamped with calls from the public.

She is quoted in the Telegraph:

"We would have raised everyone's anxiety. We wouldn't be able to deal with the volumes on our telephone lines.

I'm not sure it would have been helpful."

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"

More IT F*uck Ups

The Telegraph reports on a "wee HMRC error" discovered by Blick Rothenberg, relating to the the self-assessment account of one of its clients.

HMRC stated that a refund of tax was due.

All very nice, except that no refund was actually due.

Blicks then checked the accounts of all of its clients, and found that in every case HMRC claimed that it owed refunds of between a few pounds and £24K.

The error appear to be connected to the recent downtime of HMRC online self assessment system.

It seems that other tax firms have also noted similar errors.

An HMRC spokesman is quoted by the Telegraph:

"We are urgently investigating this issue which appears to affect a small number of agents. There is no question of anyone receiving money they are not entitled to or being asked for money they do not owe."

By happenstance the problem came to light at the very same moment that HMRC was reported to have more than tripled the pay of Deepak Singh (a key architect of its new PAYE system) to stop him walking out at a crucial moment.

Singh is now on a package worth £600K a year pro rata, as he stays on for 3 months as acting chief information officer (CIO); he failed to land the post permanently.

Singh has been mentioned on this site before, back in July I wrote:

"One rather nice little benefit for Singh of this arrangement, is that he is only liable for corporation tax of up to 28% on his earnings for these 3 months, compared with the higher-rate of income tax of 40%."

With regard to the current IT problems, isn't it lucky for Singh that all these problems came to light just before he left his temporary position?

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"

No Longer Fit For Purpose

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) have just published a survey (conducted in August and September 2010) of ICAS members that shows a drastic deterioration in the facilities for contacting HMRC. These findings are also reflected in a new National Audit Office (NAO) report entitled 'Engaging with Tax Agents'.

"Poor communications account for 43% of HMRC's systemic errors and shortcomings reported by the survey respondents (compared with only 13% in a similar survey in March 2009), and 71% of these are considered 'more serious than a year ago'.

Derek Allen, Director of Tax at ICAS, said:

'Facilities for contacting HMRC have deteriorated drastically in the past year. Phone calls to HMRC help lines go unanswered.Letters sent to HMRC lie unopened for weeks – sometimes months. Many HMRC staff seem ill-equipped to perform their allotted roles, and technical tax questions are commonly passed from pillar to post. Urgent action is needed to simplify the tax regime and give more help to those trying to comply with their fiscal obligations.'

The administration of PAYE also attracts criticism, accounting for 15% of the matters reported (up from 11% in 2009), and 72% of these are considered more serious than a year ago.Many other concerns are raised by respondents, including difficulties with online filing and unreasonable delays in obtaining tax repayments.

Welcoming the NAO report's recommendations on how HMRC and tax agents could work together more closely to improve tax systems and services, ICAS notes the NAO's conclusion that the proportion of tax understated in returns submitted by agents was broadly one third of that where there was no agent involvement – finding it paradoxical that this has been used to suggest that returns for represented taxpayers are more likely to have under-declarations of tax than returns filed by non-represented taxpayers.

Derek Allen summed up:

'The problems raised by our member survey cover a wide range of issues and demonstrate that the over-complicated tax system we have is no longer fit for purpose. We hope our survey report can be used by HMRC to supplement the NAO report, helping identify weaknesses in HMRC's processes for administering the tax system and encouraging them to remedy these.

We also hope that, in looking to maximise value for money, HMRC will implement the NAO's recommendations on extending tax agents' involvement to provide further support to HMRC's tax compliance processes, whilst achieving cost reductions for HMRC and increased efficiencies for agents.

In considering the important role played by tax agents, we are disappointed that the NAO has drawn no distinction between members of professional bodies such as ICAS and those without qualifications. Unlike those that are unqualified, our members in practice adhere to a strict code of professional conduct, undertake continuing professional development, and are subject to stringent quality assurance reviews – all designed to maintain the highest professional standards among our membership.'"

The ICAS report can be downloaded here Systemic errors in tax administration.

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"

IT Matters

The Register recently reported that owing to upgrade work last week and over the weekend, HMRC benefits and tax systems have been suffering lengthy downtime.

According to an inside source, who tipped The Register off, the "work hasn't gone very well, specifically in relation to changes to Cisco gear".

As noted, this all happened last week, is everything now working tickedy boo?

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"

The Price of Change

The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) has noted that if HMRC were to work to "improve" the PAYE system (eg via making it "real time" and centralising deductions), it would face significant challenges and will require the investment of substantial amounts of time, money and attention to detail.

John Whiting, CIOT Tax Policy Director, is quoted on Shout99:

"The fundamental aim in this area has to be to get PAYE deductions to be more accurate so that the numbers of taxpayers over and underpaying each year are significantly reduced.

The idea of information flowing from employers to government as soon as circumstances change, rather than being reconciled at the end of the tax year, is a seductive one, but this proposal would be likely to load additional costs onto employers, particularly those who do not currently use electronic methods for paying their employees.

The real benefits of real time information would only be seen if the system became truly interactive and allowed three-way communication and data transfer between employers, HMRC and employees.

We are a long way from that.

The proposal for centralised deduction of tax by HMRC should reduce employers' admin burdens, but raises many other issues. Having the wages of every employee in the country passing through one huge data processor is high-risk and many people would be concerned by the prospect of their wages passing through the Government's hands.

HMRC's help and advice services would need much greater resources if they are going to have to field the enquiries about deductions currently being fielded by employers."

I cannot see the government providing HMRC with the resources it would require to make this proposal a success.

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"

Complexity Increases

The Chancellor's recent announcement about cutting child benefit for those on higher incomes, on the face of it may seem simple enough wrt how it will be administered.

However, when it comes to politicians' announcements, nothing is ever as simple as it first appears.

Accountancy Age reports that instead of child benefit payments to higher rate earners simply being stopped, the payments will in fact be "clawed back" through the PAYE and self assessment systems.

This absurd "Heath Robinson" claw back will increase the complexity of individuals' tax affairs, and add to the burden on the already overstretched HMRC.

Come on George, sharpen up!

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"

Slow

I understand from a loyal reader that currently HMRC are taking between 10-12 weeks to respond to business start ups (eg providing a newly registered start up with a UTR).

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"

Back To The Future?

A study by PCG (Professional Contractors Group) shows that 71% of its contractor members believe that HMRC should be split into a Revenue section and a Customs section, in order to create a simpler tax system.

Those of you with long memories will recall that HMRC was once (pre Brown) in fact two separate organisations (the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise). A significant number of comments posted on this site by those who work in HMRC criticise this merger, and blame some of the ills that HMRC is suffering on the forcing together of two separate bodies.

It is clear that the merger has been botched, and is still the cause of much internal friction between IR and Customs people. I personally am of the view that it may well be worthwhile splitting the two departments up even if, in the short term, that will require the taxpayer to foot the additional costs.

However, I do not think that splitting HMRC into two is a panacea for all that ails HMRC and our tax system.

The fundamental problem is that the tax system in the UK is too complex, neither the taxpayer or staff of HMRC fully understand it and the costs of administering/complying with it are excessive.

Additionally, as is evidenced by many comments on this site, HMRC management (for numerous reasons) are simply not up to the job of motivating/managing their staff.

Any splitting of HMRC needs to be accompanied by a fundamental simplification of our tax system and a radical reorganisation of the management structure/quality within HMRC.

All of that will cost money.

Sadly, I do not believe that our government has the resources or guts to take the necessary action to improve HMRC (other than some "window dressing" that will grab the headlines for a day or two).

Comments and views, as always, 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 Reaches Out

As the 31 October paper filing deadline for self assessment forms looms near, HMRC have reached out for help to the occasionally maligned (by HMRC) tax agents.

CA Mag quote Stephen Banyard, director of HMRC's Business Customer Unit:

"Agents are a key source of information for a large proportion of the SA filing population, so we would really welcome their help this year in getting those paper returns in on time."

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"