Wednesday 15 June 2011

The Robots Are Coming



The Guardian reports that HMRC are going to use robots (internet bots) to hunt down tax evaders.

The bots will scour the net to find people who are trading without telling HMRC that they are trading/earning an income.

Used in conjunction with HMRC's Connect IT system, HMRC will be able to identify anomalies between such elements as bank interest, property income and lifestyle indicators.

Apparently, before launching the bots, HMRC is seeking input from interested parties.

Well all of this sounds very "nice", if it works and is not used as an excuse to "stiff" people with overinflated tax bills on the pretext of an erroneous red flag from a bot.

My questions to those who work for HMRC;

- Will this actually work as it is claimed "on the tin"?

- What will HMRC do with all the data it collects on innocent people etc, that is not relevant to a specific tax evasion case?

Tax does have to be taxing.

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9 comments:

  1. Oh look, another failed HMRC IT project coming along.

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  2. "What will HMRC do with all the data it collects on innocent people etc, that is not relevant to a specific tax evasion case"

    They will instruct AA/AO Machines to open Microsoft Excel.
    Give it 20 different tab headings like errr-Reference Number/Name. etc.
    Save it into the Shared Drive and then ask the Machines to collate Monthly statistics on things like Bank Interest totals.
    And then a manager will advise you to note this work down to submit it at your yearly PDE :)

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  3. I thought HMRC already had robots working for them having dealt with their "Customer Call Centers(sic)" in the past.
    They appear to be only read from a script and terminate the call if they can't answer your questions.

    It does not compute, I will termi9nate the call.....

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  4. This isn't new, they have been using this technology for a few years, perhaps they are just trying up increase it's profile to scare people.

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  5. Robots, Zombies, Muppets, Sycophants, Megalomaniacs, Dictators (sorry Directors) Pacesetter Evangelists, Net Bots!

    Nothing short of an admission of failure and a rethink followed by a restart will change the way HMRC works.

    If Euthanasia were legal in the UK the plug would have been pulled way before now.

    Clear out the dross, sort out the mess and become a leading Civil Service Department that staff are proud to work for. And fucking well get rid of Pacesetter in the process - You know it makes sense!

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  6. @15 June 2011 15:01

    I thought this sounded familiar. Last heard of it being used around 2005 aka. the last time the department actually cared about what it was doing and wasn't busy getting rid of people.

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  7. Organisation is the enemy of efficiency.

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  8. Really Bad News. Honest.15 June 2011 at 21:41

    Will the bots be going on strike on the 30th June?

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  9. I'm not sure why the article has been tagged with 'data protection act'.

    The DPA rather redundant here as the information is publicly available which means that somewhere along the line the individual has agreed (or rather given implied consent) for the information to be shared.

    It cannot retrospectively be considered data that HMRC holds exclusively about the person and therefore is not a DPA issue.

    There is of course the legitimate concern of freedom of interferance under Section 8 of the HRA 1998 however if someone has publically boasted about a source of untaxed income and under UK law it says that particular source is taxable then that person has failed their obligations under Section 8 TMA1970 which is where HMRC's remit lies.

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