Those of us who are a tad "irked" by the EU's profligacy, incompetence and interference in the UK's affairs often cite that fact that the EU's accounts are regularly "qualified" by their auditors as a significant indicator of the EU's failings.
Well, as the old saying goes, people in glass houses etc.
Who are we in the UK to talk about "qualified accounts" being an indicator of incompetence, when our own government departments have had their accounts qualified by the National Audit Office (NAO)?
The qualifications by the National Audit Office (NAO) are for a mixture of overspending, underspending or failing properly to account for expenditure.
Needless to say HMRC figure in the list of shame of Whitehall departments that have been qualified. In fact, as Exaro News points out, HMRC has seen its accounts qualified for the 10th year running, between £2.25 billion and £2.75 billion for 2011-12, around the same level as 2010-11.
Well done lads!
Amongst the highlights:
- HMRC is estimated to have lost between £2.08BN and £2.46BN of tax credits through fraud and error. This is between 7.5% and 8.8% of the £28BN total payments made, breaching HMRC’s target of 5%.
- HMRC underpaid to claimants between £170M to £290M.
- HMRC met its target to reduce tax credit debts to £4BN only after writing off £1.7BN in 2011-12.
Tax does have to be taxing.
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And just how many of this bunch of useless incompetants got bonuses, and for what FFS?!
ReplyDeleteI have a great idea for reducing HMRC's £4Bn Tax Credit debts - write the whole lot off and remove it from the accounts, now pay me a bonus!
And while they are at it, how much else have they written off?
But hey, it's not as if it's their money is it?
A little bit of reading on the NAO site shows that of the remaining £4bn Tax Credit debt over 50% or £2.3bn is unlikely to be collected.
ReplyDeleteWTF is going on with this lot they should be collecting it not throwing it away FFS!