Coding Cock Ups

The ICAEW reports that HMRC have made a wee bit of a cock up (again) with the codings for people who started receiving the state pension in 2010/11.

It seems that the new pension has not been included in their tax codes.

The normal procedure is for the DWP to tell HMRC when it starts to pay a state pension, so that HMRC can put it in the pensioner's tax code.

Where this has not been done properly for 2010/11, the state pension will not have been taxed and those affected will have underpaid tax.

Those affected should be informed by HMRC via a P800.

HMRC has said that the A19 concession is not applicable this time, because the underpayments are for current tax. However, do bear in mind that they tried to claim that A19 was not applicable for earlier tax underpayments when in fact it was.

Underpayments of less that £2K will be coded out in future years' PAYE codes. HMRC should contact those with underpayments of more than £2K, and give them 3 years to have the underpayment "coded out".

However, just in case there is a cock up wrt communications here are two helplines for contacting HMRC:

- Taxpayers 0845 300 0627
- Agents 0845 366 7855

As to why this cock up has happened again is not clear. Maybe the communications between DWP and HMRC are not as watertight as they used to be?

Tax does have to be taxing.

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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"

Trick or Treat?

A loyal reader sent me this yesterday, re HMRC's address database.

"We received a letter from HMRC a couple of weeks ago for one of our client companies, who use our office as their Registered Office.

HMRC were threatening enforcement action for an amount of £400 (which wasn't due because there is a P35 overpayment to cover it).

We phoned them and quite rightly had to go through their security procedures, but were surprised that the company's address in HMRC's records did not correspond with the Registered Office address. They asked if there was another address, and we gave them the trading address which they said was correct.

This week the company received another letter, but this time it was sent to the trading address not the Registered Office.

Leaving aside the fact we had told them the £400 was the wrong amount of tax outstanding, and that we agreed the liability would be held over until the end of this week, we can't help thinking we were tricked by HMRC into providing an alternative address to help them with their enforcement actions."

Views and comments welcome.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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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"

Feedback About HMRC Website

HMRC have asked for feedback from customers (I mean taxpayers) about the HMRC website.

The feedback can be given via this online form HMRC website quality survey.

Strangely enough the "What's new" section of the HMRC website does not feature this initiative, nor can I find via the HMRC search engine any mention of it, which makes one wonder how people who visit the site are meant to know about it.

Therefore one might care to flag to HMRC that initiatives such as this ought to be made more prominent on the HMRC website, and that the HMRC search engine needs to be improved.

Just a suggestion though:)

Tax does have to be taxing.

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HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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"

Postman Prat

My thanks to a loyal reader who has alerted me about an arrangement (I assume one that is not in writing) that is said to exist between the Royal Mail and HMRC, concerning the delivery of certain crucial HMRC letters to taxpayers.

My loyal reader advises me that she has heard from an impeccable source within the Royal Mail that many important letters (threats of prosecution, distraint etc) from HMRC are held back for delivery on specfic "red letter days" (ie just before Easter, Christmas, and the New Year).

Why would this be so?

These are the periods when tax advisors, accountants, lawyers etc (ie those who would be helping the taxpayers on the receving end of such letters) are most likely to be setting down their quill pens for a break.

As said, this comes from a loyal reader who herself has been given the information from a source in the Royal Mail. Therefore, she and I would like to ask other loyal readers the following questions:

1 Have others, on the receiving end of important letters from HMRC, noticed a pattern to the dates of receipt?

2 If such an arrangement exists, in what form does it take (eg oral, written)?

3 If such an arrangment exists, how do HMRC and the Royal Mail identify which letters to hold back for "red day delivery"?

Tax does have to be taxing.

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HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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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"

The Bleeding Edge!

Computing.co.uk reports that HMRC's Head of IT Security Architecture, Chris Franklin, has ruled out investing in "bleeding-edge" technology (even if it could provide enhanced security).

Quote:

"The trouble with bleeding-edge solutions is they tend to need patches and tweaks.

We have 50,000 users every day, so we can't afford service disruptions. We need mature and resilient services."

Franklin added:

"Any new products and capabilities we implement must be non-intrusive.

Even the smallest change to our online service is a big deal.

Our availability requirements mean that any interruption impacts a large number of customers."

He is absolutely correct, it is better that IT solutions are thoroughly proven to work before they are implemented, and I fully agree that HMRC can't afford service disruptions.

Hang on a minute, what did I write the other day??...ROFLOL!!!!

Tax does have to be taxing.

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HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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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"

Lost!

It seems that even ex staff of HMRC cannot quite shake the HMRC curse.

A loyal reader (ex HMRC) informs me of the following problem that he is having wrt lost records:

"HMRC have made a total blunder with regards me applying for Voluntary Early Severance from my current government job.

My records have got lost in a proverbial black hole of Calcutta, caused by our friends at HMRC."

If HMRC lose internal records (relating to staff/ex staff), what do they do with records relating to external "customers" (taxpayers)?

Tax does have to be taxing.

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HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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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"

Debt Collection - The HMRC Way

The Mail highlights another example of HMRC debt collection gone "rogue".

This time HMRC debt collectors wrote a letter that threatened to visit the home of a 95-year-old widow, and confiscate her possessions.

Quote:

"We are arranging a visit to your house.

We will view your possessions and list those that we will sell at auction.

We strongly advise you to avoid this as it will cost you much more to pay this way and can be embarrassing."

HMRC alleged that tax of £3,946.27 was owed. It transpired that in fact HMRC owed her £380 in overpaid tax.

An HMRC spokesman is quoted by the Mail:

"We apologise to Mrs Frew for the distress caused. The letter was issued in error and we are urgently looking into how this happened.

We will be contacting Mrs Frew to apologise and put her mind at rest."

Tax does have to be taxing.

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HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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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"

HMRC's Blunt Instrument

The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) is none too impressed with HMRC's proposals for making checks of business records before tax returns have been submitted.

Anthony Thomas, CIOT Deputy President, is of the view that this is in fact merely a revenue raising exercise and that:

"HMRC are putting forward a blunt instrument designed to deliver punishment...."

Nothing new there then!

Here is the full text of CIOT's press release:

"A proposal by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to start making large-scale checks of business records before relevant tax returns are submitted is misguided and will not achieve its objective, argues the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT).

HMRC are proposing to use powers in Finance Act 2008 to check business records in up to 50,000 cases annually, beginning in the second half of 2011, and to impose penalties for poor record keeping. The proposals appear in a consultation paper issued in December 2010, to which the CIOT has responded.

Anthony Thomas, CIOT Deputy President, said:

“The CIOT is strongly supportive of efforts to improve record keeping by business. Many tax advisers have struggled to get clients to follow best practice in this area and would welcome HMRC’s assistance in persuading them.

“However we do not believe this project will meet that objective. Its purpose seems to be more about raising money through penalties than about helping businesses improve their systems. HMRC are putting forward a blunt instrument designed to deliver punishment when what is needed is a collaborative process focused on providing education, guidance and support. We think they need to revert to the drawing board on this.

“In addition, while supportive in principle of systems based pre-return checks that provide guidance and education to businesses, we think that the legal basis for levying penalties as a result of such a check prior to submission of a return is questionable unless there is a failure to keep any records at all or there has been a failure to preserve them. A penalty should only be levied once it has been proved that the bookkeeping records have led to an incorrect return. The penalty should be linked to the incorrect return.”

The CIOT has also criticised the consultation process for the proposals. Anthony Thomas said:

“This consultation was poorly timed. Many tax advisers involved with small businesses who would have liked to comment have been tied up with self-assessment returns and the need to start submitting returns in a new language, iXBRL, during the period.

“If HMRC are determined to press ahead with some form of business records checks they should at least address some of the issues we have raised and consider doing further structured workshops for tax agents before commencing any visits.

“The agents of represented taxpayers should receive notices of visits from HMRC inspectors, while the unrepresented need to be given clear guidance on HMRC’s powers and their rights.”

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"

ROFLOL!!!!

HMRC, having admitted that their call centre service is not running at its best, have decided to further improve its "customer service" by shutting down its website between 2nd - 6th April (ironically 5th April is the end of the tax year).

Yes, you did read the correctly, HMRC will shut down its website between 2nd-6th April!

HMRC insist that this closure is necessary for "routine" computer maintenance.

Funny time of year to choose to do it, even if HMRC are not at their busiest during this time, their "customers" (taxpayers to you and I) are busy sorting out ISA's etc etc.

Taking the pish or what?

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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 Not In A Great Place - The Pride and The Passion Updated

Here, according to Accountancy Age, is the reality behind the HMRC intranet spin (see today's earlier artcile) of the public scolding of Strathie et al:

"LIKE A NAUGHTY SCHOOLKID, the taxman appeared before the Treasury select committee. Chairman Mike Clasper knew his role well, taking heed of headmaster George Mudie's words that HM Revenue & Customs must do better. As such, Mudie welcomed his tactic of agreeing with everything the committee said and he was spared the cane.

Not so lucky was HMRC chief executive Dame Leslie Strathie. After batting away many of headmaster Mudie's questions fairly successful, he finally pulled her up in the middle of her analysis of HMRC's performance for her use of "I think...".

"You keep saying that," he told her. "I'm asking you whether HMRC's performance is improving, yet you are only telling me what you think is the case. You should know these things. You are the chief executive. You should know whether it is getting better, getting worse, or staying the same. If you do not know, then you are not doing your job properly."

Thoroughly scolded, Dame Leslie took his words on board. Shunning the phrase she had been told off for, she adopted a change of tack. "I believe...", she started. Needless to say, the headmaster did not take kindly to this."

Tax does have to be taxing.

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HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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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"

HMRC Not In A Great Place - The Pride and The Passion

My thanks to a loyal reader who sent me a hand typed copy of the latest HMRC intranet posting. This one covers the recent evidence given by HMRC senior staff to the Treasury Select Committee.

Here it is as sent to me, if there are minor errors/omissions please let me know and I will correct them:

"HMRC's senior team have given evidence covering the whole range of HMRC's work to a committee of MP's

Contact centre performance, morale and engagement, PAYE and tax settlements with big business all featured in the Treasury Select Committee meeting yesterday afternoon.

Chief executive Lesley Straithie, non-executive chairman Mike Clasper, permanent secretary for tax Dave Hartnett and chief finance officer Simon Bowles all took part in the three-hour hearing.

They agreed with the committee that HMRC has to do a better on both customer service, especially call waiting times, and staff engagement.

Lesley told the committee: "I want to make a plug for our staff here - the great thing we have to build on in HMRC is their pride and passion in their work and their determination to provide good service for their customers".

She said the Department needed to "paint a picture of hope" - especially around skills and career development, something which had come out strongly in discussions with the trade unions.

She added: "I really do believe that people need to understand just how committed and passionate our people are in their work - even if they think HMRC hasn't always helped them do it".

When it came to customer service, the team told the committee that it was unlikely to improve radically until PAYE had been stabilised.

The problems experienced with PAYE and the knock-on effects on HMRC's call centres and customer service were, they stressed, the result of working across eight years in the current year, following the introduction of the National Insurance and PAYE Service (NPS)
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

[...the great thing we have to build on in HMRC is [our staff's] pride and passion in the work... Lelsey Strathie]

The backlog of open cases will be cleared by the end of 2012 and the Department will be in a "much stronger position" by 2013 and "stronger again" in 2014.

Meanwhile, accuracy for the current annual coding cycle is at 97 percent - up from 80 per cent last year. However, they cautioned there would inevitably be "ups and downs" despite the steady improvement.

The work being done to manage demand in contact centres is a key part of this - especially encouraging people to use online services instead of making unnecessary calls.

Lesley added: "The satisfaction level when you speak to our staff is very high. People speak very highly of contact centre agents when they get to speak to them."

While the aim is to provide a high-quality telephone service for those who want it, the future will involve more outreach work, home visits to the elderly and more on the internet.

The team also told the committee about the changes taking place within the Department, including the work to improve leadership and revealed they will cut the number of layers from 13 to either seven or eight.

Discussion also focused on the £917m of reinvestment to focus on avoidance, evasion and criminal attack, which will bring in an extra £7bn by 2015. When this target is met, they argued, there would be a case for going back to the Treasury with business cases to ask for further investment.

Despite the challenges the Department has faced, they stressed the compliance yield had risen significantly - by more than £5bn in four years.

Settlements with big business were also discussed, especially the Vodafone case and Dave Hartnett gave a forensic analysis showing why the much-quoted £6bn liability was an "absurd figure which no serious or reputable tax specialist would support".

More information

A full transcript of the meeting, which covered many other topics, will be published on the HMRC intranet as soon as it is available."

The HMRC Intranet article appears to have missed some "nuances", as per media reports elsewhere, Mike Clasper told the Treasury select committee that he was not happy about the level of service that HMRC had been providing.

Clasper is quoted by Accountancy Age:

"I think there will be a period of steady improvement.

We're not going to be in a great place until 2013 and we'll be stronger again in 2014."

He admitted that employees were disenchanted with the work itself and that the civil service "does not like change or manage change well" and HMRC "has not given people that need to make change the tools they need".

Dame Leslie Strathie apologised to customers (taxpayers) for poor service.

Well then, over to HMRC staff now for their thoughts and comments.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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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"

Things Get Wurst For HMRC

There is an amusing article in the Telegraph concerning a German sausage seller's battle with the German tax authorities over VAT on his wurst.

Manfred Bog, a purveyor of sausages and chips from three mobile snack bars, has won a ruling from the European Court of Justice that he did not have to charge the full rate of VAT.

The rationale being that his sausages required so little preparation that they did not constitute catering.

This of course opens the doors to claims for VAT refunds from operators of food stalls in the UK (if successful, will they be contacting their customers and paying them their VAT back I wonder?)

Anyhoo, HMRC have claimed that the decision does not have "application in the UK".

Hmmm, given that HMRC have a tendency to get things wrong these days (eg the applicability of the A19 concession) I would suggest that rejecting the possibilities of VAT reclaims being made/successful is a tad premature and tempting fate.

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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"

Gauke Red Faced

The Telegraph reports that David Gauke, a Treasury minister, has revealed in a written Parliamentary answer that 23% (almost 10,000) of those who used the "extra-statutory concession" A19 were successful and had their HMRC debt cancelled.

Why is this noteworthy?

Ah well you see in 2010, the same Mr Gauke claimed that it "does not apply that often in practice and I do not want people to build up their hopes that it will offer some kind of panacea".

To add to Gauke's embarrassment, 250,000 pensioners have also had their tax cancelled under the concession; this despite the fact that HMRC did their best to reject claims.

This whole issue of the applicability or otherwise of A19 came about as a result of the PAYE problems of last year, that prompted accountants to recommend that people use the A19 concession which puts HMRC on the backfoot if the taxpayer "could reasonably have believed that his or her tax affairs were in order".

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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 Is Not Above The Law

The Treasury Select Committee published "Principles of tax policy Eighth Report of Session 2010–11" last week.

The Committee stated the following (P 16), wrt HMRC's powers:

"HMRC's powers should be limited and should be subject to reasonable challenge in the courts.

The public interest in ensuring that HMRC is not sole arbiter of the law overrides the interest in certainty."

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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 Electric Commode

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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"

Morale

My thanks to a loyal reader who sent me this extract of a message posted by the Grand Dame Leslie Strathie, on the intranet to staff of HMRC, re a recent Daily Mail article about HMRC:

"You may have seen that HMRC has received critical coverage from a national newspaper this morning.

I know how frustrating it is when our work comes under the spotlight in this way and appreciate how unsettling it is.

There is very little new material in the Daily Mail’s coverage, which mainly focuses on PAYE. It doesn’t include the formal response given to them by our Press Office, which is unacceptable and something we are raising with them.

I want to stress that all of us on ExCom appreciate your commitment and dedication. This is something we see whenever we get out and about and visit colleagues.

We understand the frustrations reports like this cause but want you to know how much we appreciate the good work you do, day in and day out – much of which receives no coverage at all. "

I would agree with her that much of the good work (eg stuff that doesn't go wrong, staff who are prepared to help the taxpayer even if it means circumnavigating absurd "Toyota" procedures etc) does not get publicity/appreciated.

However, that criticism is not just applicable to media coverage but also to how Excom and line managers treat the front line staff as well.

Or am I totally wrong, are staff fully appreciated by HMRC management?

Tax does have to be taxing.

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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"

Simple!

I see that the Office of Tax Simplification is in favour of merging income tax and national insurance.

Renaming the con trick of NI (it most certainly is not a ring fenced insurance scheme, but is merely another tax) is all very well.

However, this recommendation will be used by politicians to raise taxes as the limits on NI will be removed, and an additonal tax of 10% will be lumped into the current rates.

Simple!

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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 Bull In A China Shop?

It would seem, from the article published in Accountancy Age, that David Gauke (Exchequer Secretary) is regarded by some as being something of a bull in a china shop; as he thrashes noisily around trying to increase the tax take, threatening all and sundry, whilst HMRC are forced to make do with ever fewer resources.

As Accountancy Age note, this "opens him up to accusations of naivety".

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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 Champions

My thanks to a loyal reader who wrote to me in connection with yesterday's article about Yokel Bear being reduced to tears by HMRC.

"Please pass my sympathies to Yokel Bear and his call centre woes.

I am confident that it is staff sickness that is the underlying cause of the staff attitude, but this should soon be resolved when with the new initiative heralded in HMRC’s 2009-10 Annual Accounts are fully implemented. I quote:

'An Engagement Champions Steering Group has been established, chaired by a member of the Executive Committee. This uses a comprehensive engagement dashboard to identify areas of good practice with the potential to increase levels of engagement across lines of business'.

Page 10 para 6.27

I do hope this reassures and heartens Mr Bear.

Much joy to your excellent site, which is surreptitiously followed by many senior thinking Revenue staff at home (office viewing is a capital offence), and by IR pensioners such as myself.

I am Sir your obedient servant...

Whenever I see the words "dashboard", "champions" and "engagement" in a management speak piece of BS I instinctively reach for my sickbag.

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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"

Reduced To Tears By HMRC

My sympathies to Yokel Bear who (as per his recent posting on his site - see below) has been reduced to tears by HMRC.

Here is the unedited text:

"A few years ago I did a tiny amount of self employed work. A few days at the most. However, being a good citizen I registered with the tax office and declared it using HMRCs rather complicated online system.

I then got a job where my employer pays all my tax etc. A job I'm still in. So, I took the time to tell HMRC that I was no longer self employed. Three attempts it took. Three long calls waiting on hold before someone managed to put the right details on the computer. They confirmed that I would not have to file a tax return this year.

So you can imagine my surprise when I received a letter today saying I'd been fined £100 - for not filing a self employed tax return, despite the fact I'm not self employed.

Easy, I thought, just give them a call and get it sorted. And thus began a whole lost morning - a morning I will never get back, a morning that is lost to me forever, a morning that took me from a chipper motivated citizen to a grown man crying and quite literally wanting to not live in a country that can produce such ball-achingly nonchalance from public servants.

I'm not going to tell the whole story, but instead look at the highlights, or perhaps I should say lowlights.

1) Getting through.

It took almost 90 minutes to speak to an actual person. I understand that lines might be busy, but do you know how soul destroying 90 minutes of listening to piped music is. This was compounded by the fact I got through 3 times to an actual person - who promptly hung up before I could speak. I suspect, no...I know ...this is a blatant attempt to make it look like call times and waiting times are less than they are. But 90 minutes. 90 minutes that has been ripped from my life. 90 minutes closer to my death with nothing achieved aside from hearing the tax office's idea of perky music. I'm no theologist, but I think I have seen what hell looks like. Hell is not other people; hell is other people hanging up.

2) Contradiction much?

I understand that mistakes are made, especially in a vast organisation like HMRC. I understand that I'm a small cog in a big machine, but do you know what would make it better to cope with - if the bad news stayed the same. In other words, I don't get the first person I speak to to tell me one thing, only for it only to be contradicted by the second. For instance "Filing a return will automatically cancel a fine" ...two minutes later "Filing a return will not automatically cancel a fine". "You don't need to file a return" ...two minutes later "you do need to file one".

It leaves a person confused, angry and unsure. This should not be the end product of customer service.

3) Terminating the call.

"I'd like to speak to a supervisor"

"He'll call you back"

"I'd like to hold and be put through, if that's ok"

"No it's not. You'll either get called back or I'm terminating the call"

....I think this one speaks for itself. The motto seems to be "The customer is never right. The customer will fit around us".

4) The jargon.

I don't work for HMRC, which makes the sneering attitude from staff of "Huh, why don't you know that?" especially galling. Let's just make this clear. I did a few days self employed work a few years back. This does not make me an expert in the internal working of the tax office.

It's almost a kind of bullying isn't it? The attitude of "I know more than you". Yes, you do...but the point is to put the knowledge to use to help the customer - not to make them feel uninformed and belittled.

I don't blame the staff. No doubt they are going through hell themselves - job insecurity, understaffing and stress. Bad customers service is very rarely "a few bad apples" - it's usually has it's root in the attitude of the organisation as a whole, and the lead given from the top.

Unfortunately, the ethos of HMRC seems to be everything is too much trouble, information doesn't have to be accurate, or indeed true - it just needs to get the customer off the phone. Done, done, onto the next one. The ethos seems to be "the customer is invariably stupid and wrong, what else could explain why they are not experts in how we work?"

So the upshot is that I lost a morning, being given contradictory information and slightly belittled, to the point where after the call I sat here wracked with anger, frustration and an overwhelming sadness of what we have to endure when dealing with government departments. The keyword here is "endure". At what point did trying to get good customer service become a matter of stamina? A matter of 'the weak fall by the wayside'?

I'm not ashamed to say, as I sat here shaking a shed a couple of tears feeling impotent, browbeaten and sad.

I'm not asking for the world, but is some consistent information and a polite attitude too much to ask for? If only so a grown man won't be reduced to tears by the very people who are employed to provide a service to him?

Finally, you know the worst thing? The most depressing fact of all? That even if the head of HMRC read this, I suspect my experience would just be ignored, shrugged off. After all, the customer is never right.

Another one reduced to tears - like I said, done, done and on to the next one."

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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"

Close To Failing

Andrew Tyrie, Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, issued a warning last week that will ring true to many who visit this site; namely that HMRC is close to failing.

He is quoted by the Press Association as saying that HMRC "in some areas is close to being a failing institution", and noting that there is "absolutely no point" making cuts if it led to increased costs for business.

He quoted written evidence from the Chartered Institute of Taxation:

"Ten years ago the Inland Revenue had the reputation of being one of the best-run departments in Whitehall. Today HMRC's reputation is in tatters as one disaster follows another."

Mr Tyrie warned:

"HMRC will become dysfunctional unless action is taken to bring to an end the string of disasters that have befallen it."

Regarding the ongoing restructuring within HMRC, he said:

"Can that reorganisation now be completed while cutting so many more staff?

I hope it will but you have to say it could be a triumph of hope over experience if you look at other Whitehall departments and their reorganisations."

It sounds as though the politicians have all but given up on HMRC. This of course is not encouraging for either the staff (who are also taxpayers) and taxpayers who are not staff.

As I have noted before, the internal chaos within HMRC is a product of:

- Political interference

- An excessively complex and unwieldy tax system, created by politicians

- A botched merger, imposed on it by Brown

- Inept and incompetent senior management, appointed by politicians

It is the politicians that have created this mess, and it is up to the politicians to resolve it (instead of acting as Pontius Pilate and trying to wash their hands of it).

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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 - The HMRC Way II

According to this poster on Accounting Web (scroll down the comments section), HMRC and their debt collection agency have broken the law:

"Just opened this mornings post and in it is a letter from an outfit called "CCS Collect" making all sorts of threats.

This letter breaks so many laws I don't know where to start.

It's addressed to us, not the client.

It's an ex client so there are serious issues of Data Protection by disclosing his affairs to us.

It threatens a visit to our premises - I hope they can get to the gate in 9 seconds, the dog can do it in 10 :)

It threatens bankruptcy proceedings - has no one told these cretins that you cant make someone bankrupt for debts under £750.

It contains the term "arrest" implying possible arrest - which is of course a totally illegal threat.

It threatens seizure of goods - since it is not our debt that would be theft then.
There is, of course, no court order in place so non of the threats are legally enforceable.

It clearly states that they act on behalf of HMRC - which makes HMRC jointly liable for their actions.

I am going to really enjoy this. I rather think I will be having a "little chat" with CCS & HMRC - in a court room.

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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 - The HMRC Way

This article has recently been posted on Accounting Web, concerning threatening letters sent out by HMRC (the organisation that - as per yesterday's article - takes at least 6 months to pay its debts).

Here is the text in full:

"A client has just brought in a letter they received this morning from HMRC saying that a Self Assessment amount was overdue. The part that I am very shocked by is the second paragraph which goes:

'I don't seem to have received your payment of tax due by 31 January. I am particularly concerned about your debt because our records show that you already have an unpaid tax debt. That is why I am treating your case as a priority, and will be asking one of our field agents to call at your house to remove your possessions and sell them at public auction in order to clear the debt.'

What concerns me most about this threatening letter is that it is dated 22nd February 2011 therefore a liability which is hypothetically only 3 weeks late. Also it is only regarding what the Revenue believes is a late payment of part of their 1st Payment on Account for 2010/11, actually the amount is not due as we had reduced their payments on account which the Revenue had still not processed.

When I phoned up to complain about the tone etc of the letter I was told that this is now the new letter that will be sent for all perceived late payments. I am worried about the effect that this will have on some of our more delicate/elderly clients as without wanting to be alarmist this could quite possibly kill some of them or at the very least make them afraid to answer the door."

Has anyone else received such threats?

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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 Like Trucking

My thanks to a loyal reader, who wrote to me about the experience of a chum of his who runs a large vehicle recovery firm.

This company has often been used by HMRC to uplift (tow away) vehicles which had been "dipped" (to test the diesel used) by HMRC at the roadside, and seized if red diesel was found to be present.

The trouble was that HMRC seem to have been a tad tardy at paying the bills for this service. I am given to understand that HMRC told the recovery company that they were trying to get invoices paid within SIX MONTHS!

Not exactly Speedy Gonzales are they?

Unsurprisingly the recovery company doesn't want anything more to do with HMRC, and have blacklisted them as a client.

However, it doesn't end there.

HMRC then sent the company an email which said that, owing to cost cutting, they will no longer be undertaking road side diesel testing as they cannot afford to pay to tow the vehicles away.

The two "take aways" from this tale are:

1 Don't subcontract for HMRC, unless they pay you upfront.

2 Feel free to use red diesel, because you won't be tested.

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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"

Making It Up As They Go Along

ICAS have put a very well aimed and targeted boot into the "delicates" of HMRC, in respect of HMRC's Impact Assessment of Business Record Checks.

ICAS are of the view that business records checks could cost SMEs at least 10 times more than HMRC's guesstimate, and will impose an absurd administrative burden on SMEs.

In HMRC's fantasy land each visit, averaging half a day, will cost a business £54. However, ICAS has re-costed an average visit using realistic estimates of business disruption and adviser's time and have come up with a total of at least £560 per visit.

ICAS is also somewhat wary of HMRC's fantasy plans to visit 50,000 SMEs each year for four years.

That would be most assuredly bureaucratic bullying overkill, if HMRC really had the resources to do that. Additionally, ICAS is not particularly impressed with the "quality" of some of the people HMRC will be sending into the field and is concerned about the "intransigent attitudes" of these inspectors.

ICAS say:

"..the bases on which these proposals have been presented seem deeply flawed.

Assumptions made by HMRC regarding the incidence of inadequate business records are unsubstantiated by any detail, and estimated costs of the scheme are massively understated. It was not long ago that HMRC were assuring the Administrative Burdens Advisory Board that interventions would be well targeted to reduce red tape for compliant taxpayers, and we fail to understand why this policy has been changed...

HMRC's basic assertion that poor business record keeping is responsible for a loss of tax in up to 2 million SME cases annually seems to be a sweeping generalisation with little credible evidence provided to back it up. We would like to see evidence as to how this statistic has been arrived at, as the validity of the entire consultation document is based on it. Without such evidence, the proposals might appear burdensome and unjustified.

Experience of our members in practice suggests that poor record keeping (where it arises) does not necessarily equate with loss of tax – it can sometimes result in their clients paying too much tax...

We would take issue with HMRC's basic assumption that SMEs with poor records have chosen to have poor records. This is a misconception. Those with the courage and tenacity to embark on new business ventures are forced to battle from the outset against a mass of Government regulation and red tape. Typically they don't go into business because of their record keeping skills...

Anecdotal evidence has caused our members to question the skills and professional judgement of some HMRC representatives checking the business records of their clients. We understand that many of these members of staff have no significant accountancy or tax training. This can cause them to be on the defensive, and in these circumstances it is not unknown for them to adopt intransigent attitudes..."

As we can see, an unelected inefficient bureaucracy is allowing the excessive powers granted to it by a weak and incompetent political establishment to go to its head; and is attempting to use these powers to bully people and organisations that pay for its very existence.

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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"

Complaints Up 113%

It seems that, according to UHY Hacker Young, complaints upheld against HMRC have risen by 113% in the last 2 years.

The Adjudicator's Office upheld 446 cases in 2010, 229 in 2009 and 108 in 2008.

Roy Maugham, tax partner at UHY Hacker Young, is quoted by the FT that the increase was a result of "deteriorating levels of service at the Revenue..The level of service is a huge concern..Even getting a response to a simple letter of inquiry can now take months."

Phil Berwick, director of tax investigations at law firm McGrigors, believes that this is but "the tip of the iceberg...

There are many more people who feel aggrieved but who don't want to take matters up with the Revenue".

He added:

"There have been significant cuts at HMRC over the last few years.

And it's not just a numbers problem – the people they are losing are also the most-experienced people. This is a recipe for disaster."

Patrick O'Brien, a spokesman for the Revenue, said that only "a tiny fraction of a per cent of those customers find it necessary to go to the Adjudicator".

So that's alright then:)

Tax does have to be taxing.

UK EXPATS: Reduce tax on UK Pensions
HMRC QROPS provider. Unlock your UK pension and access a 25% lump sum today.

Quote ID code "ABC" when contacting a QROPS specialist.

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"