D Day

Today is deadline day for filing online returns for the tax year ended 2010.

HMRC, according to the Telegraph, expect approximately 900,000 people to miss the deadline and incur a fine.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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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"

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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 Joys of IT II - HMRC's Latest IT Fail

My sympathies to Glyn Moody, who had to endure a tedious time trying to prove to HMRC that he was who he said he was.

"On Monday, I called Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to give them some information they wanted from me. After being placed on hold for about 10 minutes, I finally got through, and was rightly “taken through security”. After all, it's vitally important that HMRC and similar organisations establish that the person they are talking to is indeed that person. Unfortunately, security had been “upgraded”, so you probably know what is coming next....

It turned out that “the system” no longer had “enough information” on me to verify my identity. This is despite the fact that I have been bunging money to the Inland Revenue for several decades, and have also interacted with Customs & Excise and other parts of the system now run by HMRC.

I certainly have records of these interactions going back many years. I could tell them precisely the amounts that I owed and paid them back in the 1980s and 1990s, for example. It seems surprising that they didn't also have this data in a form that they could access for verification purposes.

But no; the “system”, this wondrous updated beast, seemed to have mislaid all that wondrous information stuff, and so was unable to verify my identity. Which meant that through no fault of my own, I could not give the information the HMRC was demanding. It also meant that I would have to go in person to a physical HMRC office, taking with me the canonical two documents establishing my identity. That is, having wasted fully 40 minutes on an expensive 0845 number that I had the pleasure of paying for, I now had to waste a morning traipsing up to some inconveniently-located site.

Of course, when I went yesterday, it was raining. And, of course, when I got to this inconveniently-located HMRC office, thereby wasting the key time of my writing day, I was informed that this new, updated system was “down”, and they they didn't know when it would be coming “up”. And no, they couldn't just look at the two documents establishing my identity, and enter the info later because, well, you know, the “system was down”, which meant that everyone was reduced to a state of organisational de-cerebration.

And so I face the necessity of going back to this inconveniently-located office once again, when it will doubtless be raining once more, in the risible hope that this wonderful “updated” and so-called “system” might be vaguely running, but I'm not holding my breath.

This fiasco will join all the other disasters associated with the incompetent computer services of the HMRC and its forebears, including perhaps the most serious loss of personal data in world history (well, that we know about...). And yes, I do realise that it was probably because of that colossal failure that they have upgraded their security: but the point is good security lets people do things, rather than simply locking everyone out of the system."

Visit The Orifice of Government Commerce and buy a collector's item.

Visit The Joy of Lard and indulge your lard fantasies.

Show your contempt for Nanny by buying a T shirt or thong from Nanny's Store.

www.nannyknowsbest.com is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Celebrate the joy of living with booze. Click and drink!

Visit Oh So Swedish Swedish arts and handicrafts

Why not really indulge yourself, by doing all the things that Nanny really hates? Click on the relevant link to indulge yourselves; Food, Bonking, Gifts and Flowers, Groceries

The Joys of IT

My thanks to a loyal reader who has pointed me to the plans by HMRC to implement a "real time" PAYE system which, "theoretically", will ensure that when/if the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) introduce a Universal Credit system the DWP will have up-to-date information on everyone's income.

So far so good.

In order to aid HMRC introduce the system we, the taxpayers, have given HMRC £100M.

Spiffing!

I am sure that Ex Com and the relevant IT managers are fully capable of not wasting this money, and of introducing a system that will not go over budget and will work as expected.

Anyhoo, HMRC have issued a Consultation Document, responses to which have to be lodged by 28th February 2011.

One of the core changes which HMRC propose to make is to utilise the BACS system for reporting PAYE information. Currently payrolls can use either the internet or Electronic Data Transfer. These electronic channels were imposed on employers when HMRC introduced compulsory electronic filing of PAYE data.

However, HMRC now state that the change to BACS is necessary because:

"EDI does not link the payment instructions and information about deductions which is fundamental to the RTI (real time information) concept."

The BACS system (run by Vocalink) handles practically every financial transaction, debit card, credit card and inter bank funding transfer in the UK.

Now what does that tell you?

Think about it....

Yes, that's right, it has saturated the UK market and probably has little growth potential in the UK unless it finds a new market.

Vocalink is the main provider of payment services to the UK public sector. They handle 98% of state benefits and 95% of all salaries.

Thankfully for BACS, HMRC stepped in when they did!

Hoozah!

By the way, in addition to providing BACS with a new market and imposing costs on many companies by making them change to BACS, HMRC are also demanding details of employees bank accounts.

Why does it need this information?

Government snooping!

Quite unnecessary, unless HMRC has a legitimate reason to believe that fraud has occurred.

To summarise:

- HMRC intend to force payroll operators to switch their electronic communications capability to the BACS system, regardless of cost.

- HMRC intend to force every commercial payroll software developer to change the way in which his or her software operates, in order to comply with this chang.

- HMRC do not appear to have any procedure in place to compensate either payroll departments or payroll software providers for this change. Everyone just has to do it.

- HMRC have been given £100M of our money to pay for any changes to their computer systems.

- HMRC will, if this change goes ahead, have access to the bank account details of every employee in the UK. This is not in any way relevant to the correct calculation of Income Tax.

- BACS will gain a huge new market. It would also be interesting to know the terms of the contract with HMRC, wrt fees for data volume etc.

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"

Unreconciled

My thanks to a loyal reader who sent me a link to this parliamentary question and answer regarding unreconciled NI payments, dated 24 January 2011:

Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset, Conservative)

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many national insurance (NI) contributions deducted from pay and recorded on form P14 were not credited to NI accounts in each year since 5 April 2004; and what the monetary value is of the contributions yet to be credited.

David Gauke (Exchequer Secretary, HM Treasury; South West Hertfordshire, Conservative)

The number of unmatched P14s and the associated monetary values of the contributions received for the tax years requested are as follows:

Tax year P14s not matched Monetary value of contributions (£)
2004-05 1,839,143 263,101,931.24
2005-06 2,016,761 289,212,918.76
2006-07 1,974,081 278,618,228.99
2007-08 1,947,065 258,603,899.93
2008-09 1,542,773 194,623,653.05
2009-10 (1)- (1)-

(1) Figures not yet available.

The levels seems reasonably consistent. The next question Liddell-Grainger needs to ask is, how many and what value of these still remains unreconciled.

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"

There Is Nothing Like a Dame - The Movie

My thanks to a loyal reader who advises me that Dame Lesley Strathie has released a video on the HMRC intranet.

I am advised that during the 3 minute video the "Grande Dame" talks about 2010, and about how bad 2010 was (for her, or her staff and the taxpayers I wonder?).

I am also advised that there are quite a number of "erms" during the video.

I have tried to find a copy on the internet, but have so far failed.

Please, if anyone has a copy to hand, could they send it to me (or upload on YouTube and let us know the link)?

Thanks.

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"

Stifling, Unresponsive and Unpleasant

My thanks to a loyal reader, who pointed me to written evidence submitted to Parliament in late 2010 about HMRC by Martin Lewis (an ex HMRC employee).

Lewis describes a general culture in HMRC – "one that is stifling, unresponsive and often unpleasant to work in. It also engenders cynicism..."

The full submission can be read here Administration and effectiveness of HMRC – written evidence.

However, I have copied the Executive Summary below:

"HMRC's culture originates in the main from the Inland Revenue (§5)

· SCS level managers in HMRC discourage middle managers (Grade 6 and 7) from providing upward negative feedback to them (§6)

· SCS level managers in HMRC are largely unaware of the difficulties, problems, and obstacles that the bulk of the organisation faces (§7)

· The role of middle managers is to meet targets and not to provide reasons why targets are not met (§7)

· Staff are disillusioned and feel HMRC is becoming dysfunctional (§7)

· There are exceptions in smaller more specialised areas (§9)

· Operational performance is driven by targets rather than desired strategic outcomes. The department is process driven and not customer focussed (§11)

· A tax inspector or compliance officer brings in additional revenue of five to ten times the cost of employing him (§13)

· The deterrent effect of the compliance effort depends on the taxpayer believing that he and others will get caught (§13)

· The NAO should check that HMRC has a system which ensures the right outcome of the largest of tax settlement cases (§13)

· Cultural reform involving empowerment and accountability is needed and it starts at the top. (§15)"

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 Dead Shall Be Raised

The Daily Record reports that Elizabeth Gibson, an HMRC employee, defrauded HMRC out of £58K over a period of 7 years.

Apparently she made false claims for dead relatives and people who didn't exist.

It is not clear to me as to why the system did not flag that the people had died several years before the fraud started, I assume that at the time of their deaths HMRC (Inland Revenue as it then was) would have been informed?

I would be interested to know how she was able to do this, and what caused the fraud to be discovered.

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 Leaky Ship

The FT reports that HMRC is conducting an internal investigation into allegations that HMRC staff/officials have been leaking details of private companies' tax affairs to the media.

Suspicions about internal leaks have been aroused as a result of the ongoing furore about the tax arrangements of certain companies such as Vodafone (some sections of the shouty media and certain dog whistle politicians are of the view that tax avoidance is illegal).

Five staff have been taken off corporate investigation work, and the National Audit Office has been called in to investigate how HMRC reaches tax settlements with major clients.

Unless things have changed very dramatically since I was a lad, settlements are usually reached via a mixture of negotiation and barter. HMRC set down their perceptions of how much tax is owed, the company will rebut these point by point (where it can) and throw into the mix counter claims for overpaid tax etc. In the end a deal is reached.

The procedure usually produces an equitable outcome, so long as the HMRC decisions maker (who signs off on the deal) is not unduly biased one way or another.

It would appear, that in the current febrile atmosphere, there are those within HMRC who believe that Dave Hartnett has become a little too close to certain companies; whilst others counterclaim that he has acted properly, and within the rules/procedures.

Clearly an organisation that is meant to guard people's/companies' tax details, in the same manner that a doctor guards the medical records of his/her patients, cannot function or be trusted if these details are leaked to the press.

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"

There Is Nothing Like a Dame - Delusions of Grandeur

I see that the "respected leader" of HMRC, Dame Lesley Strathie, has delusions of grandeur.

The FT reports that the "Grande Dame" has appointed Carol Bristow (a director-level tax expert) as her personal aide.

Senior civil servants, such as Sir Gus O'Donnell the cabinet secretary, do not normally "big themselves up" by appointing such senior personal assistants.

Maybe someone should tell the "Grande Dame" that there are cuts and redundancies going on in HMRC?

Maybe the "Grande Dame" simply isn't up to the job?

She should have a care that people do not start to regard her as nothing more than a third rate pantomime dame.

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"

Strategy!

My thanks to a loyal reader, who advises me that HMRC are planning to permanently transfer over 1000 processing staff into contact centres.

Fair enough?

Well, apparently there is one small fly in HMRC's oinkment wrt this plan.

It seems that there may not be sufficient space, IT equipment or telephone resources.

For why?

These resources, as per current policy, were been removed as and when anyone left (as the people were not going to be replaced).

The phrase "making up policy on the hoof" springs to mind!

I am interested in receiving more information about this, if it is going to go ahead, and any other possible "plans" that HMRC may have wrt contact centres.

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"

Lost

The Bournemouth Echo reports that HMRC are conducting an "urgent" inquiry after a parcel containing 42 private companies' tax returns was delivered to Michael Hodge, a former mayor of Christchurch and by happenstance ex HMRC fraud investigator.

The 42 firms are SMEs based based around Surrey, Kent and Essex. Seemingly the documents, despite the parcel being labelled for Mr Hodge, were destined for a storage centre.

The documents included annual accounts, tax returns and accountants' letters; dealt with by Croydon tax office.

According to the Echo Mr Hodge was not that impressed with the lack lustre "enthusiasm" from HMRC, for looking into this cock up, when he reported it to them.

HMRC only began to take an interest when Mr Hodge told them that he would contact the Echo.

Lisa Billard of HMRC is quoted:

"We take customer security very seriously and no data has been lost in this incident.

Our parcel was correctly addressed, but it would appear that a label from another package (not an HMRC package) had become attached to it within the postal system meaning that the courier company delivered it to the wrong address.

HMRC have collected the parcel and can confirm its contents are intact. We have raised the matter with the delivery company."

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 Enemy of The People - The Blame Game

When an organisation or individual has a problem, until that organisation/person admits to themselves and others that they have a problem that problem will not be addressed.

Thus we should all feel rather depressed to read that according to The Parliamentary Ombudsman three government agencies (including, surprise surprise, HMRC) have not had the guts to own up to problems, and have instead played the old political game of passing the buck and blaming each other.

Parliamentary Ombudsman, Ann Abraham, has published a report "A Breach of Confidence" which noted that the 3 agencies (HMRC, Child Support Agency and the Department for Work and Pensions) collectively failed to deal with a data mistake (first reported in 2006), which led to a woman's personal and financial information being wrongfully disclosed to her former partner, and her child support payments being reduced without her knowledge.

In 2006 one of the agencies incorrectly updated her records to show her living at her former partner's address, although she had in fact never lived there.

Not unreasonably the woman was pissed off, and tried gain assurance that the mistake had been corrected.

As is the way with brain dead "jobsworth" government agencies, she was passed from pillar to post. No one was prepared to accept responsibility.

Polticians and government departments are incapable of admitting responsibility for mistakes, which is why their remit over our lives should be minimised.

The ombudsman's report concluded that, in effect, the agencies were useless and dishonest:

-The computer systems used by the 3 agencies could make changes to the woman's data without her knowledge or consent. However, for reasons that no one has yet explained, the networks cannot identify the source of any errors.

Does anyone seriously believe that master data changes cannot be traced to source?

- The 3 brain dead agencies blamed each other and, of course, "the system". Thus, they concluded, "nothing could be done".

As we know, IT systems are only as good as the data input and their underlying programing (ie cock ups happen because of the human element, not the machine element). The fact that the agencies concluded that "nothing could be done" speaks volumes about their attitude to the people who pay for their existence (ie the taxpayers).

Is it not ironic that the IT systems of the 3 agencies are able to communicate, yet the human "jobsworth" members of these organisations won't communicate with each other?

The good news is that this troika of uselessness have been instructed to apologise, and to pay £2K compensation.

The enemy of the people has become the state, it has manifestly failed in its duty of care, efficiency and probity and needs to be cut back root and branch!

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"

Financial Power List 2011

My thanks to Accountancy Age for placing me (at 42) on their Financial Power List for 2011. I also appeared in the list in 2006.

The list identifies the top 50 who will wield the most influence over the future direction of accounting.

42 Ken Frost, scourge of HMRC
Known better as one of the ICAEW’s main agitators during its failed attempt to merge with CIPFA, Frost has more recently, and equally successfully, channeled his ire at the taxman. His blog, hmrcisshite.blogspot.com, has consistently come up with nuggets of information HMRC would rather not have been made public.

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 "Secret" Write Off

The Telegraph reports that up to 250,000 pensioner who, because of errors on their tax codes, have unwittingly underpaid tax will have their underpaid tax debt written off.

For why?

Seemingly they would have an excellent claim against any demand sent out by HMRC, because the tax on their pensions should have automatically been deducted at the correct level, and there was no way for individuals to check for mistakes.

Interestingly the individual write offs will be made in "secret", ie the affected pensioners won't know anyhting about it, as the tax demands have not actually yet been sent out.

The intriguing question that has not yet been answered is, if those who underpaid had no way of knowing that their tax affairs were in error, what about those who have overpaid?

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 Billion Here, A Billion There

CABARET - Money

Accountancy Age reports that Dave Hartnett is claiming that the Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility (LDF) could raise up to £3BN by 2015, HMRC's original estimate was £1BN.

The question is will Hartnett still be in his job by then, and will anyone have remembered what he said anyway?

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 Million Here, A Million There

As HMRC continues to trawl through 17.9M open case files, further tax over/underpayments have come to light.

The Sun reports that on top of the 6M over/underpayments already being followed up by HMRC, a further 1M have been identified.

Matthew Oakshott, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, is not impressed and is quoted:

"HMRC just lurches from one crisis to the the next. Any business that ran its affairs like this would have gone bust years ago."

All very well, maybe, but it is the politicians who created the mess by merging IR and Customs, by creating an overcomplex tax system and by appointing an executive committee that is clearly out of its depth.

Headline grabbing soundbites or not, it is up to the politicians to sort the mess that is HMRC out.

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 Deadline Looms

Those who have not yet submitted a tax return for 2010 should be aware that the 31 January deadline for online filing is rapidly approaching.

Miss that, and you will be subject to a fine of £100 plus possible penalties and interest payments on unpaid tax.

Those of you who have not used the online service before will need to apply for an activation code. Be aware that HMRC claim that this may take 7 working days to reach you (examples of where this takes longer are 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"

Nudge Theory

I see that HMRC are indulging in some psychological tricks (known as "nudge theory") in an effort to increase tax take. The mind control techniques are being devised by a special unit set up by Cameron which, oddly enough, the government refuses to disclose the activities or membership of.

As per The Independent:

"One experiment involved Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) secretly changing the wording of tens of thousands of tax letters, leading to the collection of an extra £200m in income tax....

...tax officials who reinforce "norms" dramatically increase their collection rates. The authorities tend to be "quite aggressive and assertive" when chasing late payers, Dr Halpern said. "We will send you a rude letter and say: 'We're going to come and find you and break down your door and take away your children.' So [HMRC] officials had been reading a bit of [nudge] literature and they changed letters on just one block of letters [chasing] £600m in unpaid tax.

"The normal repayment rate is about 50 per cent. The [new] letter says: '94 per cent of people pay their tax on time', so now you emphasis the underlying social norm – and then: 'Even if one person doesn't it has a significant impact'. The repayment rate went up to 85 per cent, [collecting] £200m just in that experiment."

The state never ceases to try to control people, whther by legislation or mind games.

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"