E-petition To Stop Closure of HMRC Enquiry Centre Network

There is currently an e-petition on the HMG website calling for the proposed closure of HMRC's enquiry centre network to be stopped.

The text of the petition is shown below, and it can be signed via this link.

Stop the closure of the HMRC Enquiry Centre Network

Responsible department: Her Majesty's Treasury

HMRC announced on 14 March that they propose to close all 281 tax enquiry centres in March 2014.

Taxpayers will no longer be able to walk into an enquiry centre to receive free assistance with their tax issues.

Their only alternatives will be to call the contact centre, write in, check for information online, contact the voluntary sector or in very exceptional circumstances have a face to face meeting with a mobile advisor.

Please sign this to get HMRC to halt the removal of this basic customer service. This certainly does not gel with HMRC's Vision to "make it easy for our customer to get things right"

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Authorised Agent Warning From HMRC

HMRC have issued a warning to all and sundry (specifically agents) not to use the HMRC logo, or to state that they are "registered" or "authorised" agents of HMRC.

The full text of the warning is reproduced below:

Agents who advertise as registered or authorised agents of HMRC

Some tax agents advertise their services by using the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) logo or stating that they are 'registered' or 'authorised' agents of HMRC. This is unacceptable.

HMRC believes that this is misleading because it implies that these agents have been endorsed by HMRC. HMRC does not approve, accredit or endorse anyone.

Tax agents must register with HMRC in order to deal with the department on behalf of a client, but this is a process purely to enable agents to interact with the department.

The HMRC name and logo is protected by crown copyright. If HMRC becomes aware of misleading claims or advertising, the department will take legal action. The majority of tax agents comply with HMRC's requirements for advertising but there are firms who will continue to promote themselves in this inappropriate way.

Find out how to authorise an accountant to deal with HM Revenue & Customs for you

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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 Employer Bulletin

As per HMRC's September Employer Bulletin:

"HMRC would like to thank all employers, pension providers, agents and software developers who have helped to make the move to real time reporting go so smoothly. With a change of this size, there have inevitably been a few teething troubles but, working together with employers, their representatives and their software providers, these have quickly been put right."

The Bulletin goes on to announce the introduction of Generic Notifications:

"HMRC wants to help employers get things right and to avoid incurring penalties. To that end, in October we will introduce a series of new notifications aimed at helping employers to manage their PAYE affairs. These will be referred to as ‘generic notifications’.

What are generic notifications?

These are electronic messages to help you manage your PAYE affairs. Initially we will be sending four types of messages to employers, all of which are designed to advise employers that they are at risk of incurring penalties in future."

Additionally transitional arrangements for employers with fewer than 50 employees were originally scheduled to end on 5 October this year but, after listening to stakeholders, it will come to an end in April 2014.

 Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Avoidance Cases – What Happens To Repayment Claims?

Last week HMRC issued an update outlining its policy on withholding repayment claims in avoidance cases:

"HMRC aims to stop tax avoiders from acquiring an advantage, even a temporary advantage, over the majority of taxpayers who don't try to get around the rules."

The rationale being that in the year ended 31 March 2013, there were 32 decisions in the Tribunals and Courts in tax avoidance cases. HMRC won 26 of those cases (82%) with over £1bn protected.

"The small minority who engage in tax avoidance should not gain a tax advantage during the period from the tax due date to the time when we complete our enquiries and resolve any dispute......

Not only do we challenge the permanent tax result that the avoidance scheme claims to produce, but we also look to deny interim or temporary 'cash flow' benefits from engaging in avoidance, particularly where a scheme claims to give rise to a tax repayment or some other form of personal tax relief."

The methodology will be as follows:

"In appropriate circumstances, we withhold income tax repayments where the claims which produce them constitute (in our opinion) tax avoidance, and where we are challenging or considering challenging those claims by enquiry. If we are satisfied that a claim for repayment does not depend (or does not wholly depend) on tax avoidance, we do of course work with customers and their agents with a view to making an appropriate provisional repayment."

As to the time factor involved, HMRC state:

"If we withhold a repayment in any income tax case, our guidance makes it clear that there should be no undue delay in opening an enquiry."

As ever, views and comments are welcome.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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 Joy of Staples II

My thanks to Mike Truman editor of Taxation who pointed me to the original source of the quote from HMRC about stapling forms 64-8 together.

As per CIOT:

"At a recent meeting with HMRC, the CIOT along with members of other professional bodies, established a simple solution to a problem experienced by many in relation to paper forms 64-8. As a result, HMRC have issued this message concerning the stapling together of forms relating to the same individual/partners to avoid these becoming separated before processing. This simple solution to a problem experienced by many is worth noting. HMRC update begins: 

'An agent cannot be authorised to act for a client until a record has been created for that client - and this is of particular importance for SA. If an SA1 (or CWF1 or SA 400 or SA 402) is not processed by the time the 64-8 is actioned then there will be no SA record to authorise the agent for and the 64-8 will be put away. To overcome this the SA1, CWF1, SA 400 or SA 402 should be stapled to the 64-8 when it is submitted. A single staple in the top left hand corner will be sufficient. A specialist team within Centralised Agent Authorisation Team (CAAT) deal with these forms together so that your client is registered for SA and you are set up as their agent at the same time. If the forms are not stapled they are likely to become separated and there could be a problem with the 64-8.

In general we would prefer letters submitted to HMRC were not stapled, but in this case it will help the pages stay together and so allow them to be processed together, speeding up the process for you and your clients.'
Technical Team
30 August 2013"

However, my thanks to another loyal reader who pointed me to this where HMRC state:

"Send the registration forms - and any agent authorisation forms 64-8 - to HMRC at the following address. Please do not attach covering letters or staple items together as this will slow down the registration process."

Hmmm..all a tad confusing!
 
Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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 Joy of Staples

My thanks to a loyal reader who alerted me to an article in Taxation magazine, that notes that HMRC have issued a directive concerning the stapling of the two page 64-8 requests that deal with authorising agents.

The directive, according to Taxation, notes that "..a single staple in the top left hand corner will be sufficient...If the forms are not stapled they are likely to become separated and there could be a problem with the 64-8..."

Oddly enough, HMRC generally prefer correspondence not to be stapled.

Does anyone have a link to the relevant page on the HMRC site where is advice is given please?

Thanks.



Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Hanging On The HMRC Phone

In July I wrote that PleasePress1.com had analysed the amount of web traffic to web pages that offer shortcuts for particular organisations, and had compiled an index of the most frustrating companies to call in the UK.

Seemingly, in July, HMRC ranked as the most frustrating organisation to call, with over 400 menu options across just six services.

Since July the survey has been updated to incorporate a "vast amount of feedback" from social media and via the pleasepress1.com website.

Following this update, British consumers still find HMRC's call centre menu the most frustrating customer service line in the UK.

HMRC, which receives up to 60 million calls a year, has around 400 menu options in total, Please Press 1 founder Nigel Clarke told the Telegraph.

An HMRC spokesperson is quoted:

"HMRC receives around 60 million calls a year to its helplines, covering a wide range of subjects, so there will always be a number of different options for callers. 

In all cases, callers will be presented with up to six main options. Based on their selection, sub options become available so that the customer gets all the information they require. 

We are currently looking at our telephony system and will be introducing improvements to our call system later this year to help customers get their enquiries dealt with as quickly as possible.”

Loyal readers are welcome to share any shortcuts to the HMRC menu system that they may know.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

RTI Outage

There appears to have been an RTI outage yesterday and maybe today as well, although HMRC state that there are no problems today:

"16 September 2013 13:40
The issue preventing customers logging in to our Online Services has now been resolved. We are apologise for the inconvenience that may have been experienced."

As per accountingweb:

"HMRC's response to RTI filing seems to have gone down again, over the last hour. Our phones have gone red hot with callers saying that they file FPS and don't get a response back. I've just tried one, and yes, it goes into the "pending" state where HMRC has received it but not yet responded with success or failure.

Over the last 6 weeks this has been happening more and more, as if HMRC's servers struggle to cope as the data volume they're dealing with increases. Presumably the big employers are coming live now as they were delayed initially."

Please let me know if you have had, or are having problems accessing HMRC systems online, thanks.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Politics Before Common Sense

Tonight's Panorama "Tax, Lies and Videotape", to be shown on BBC One at 20:30 BST, will be gemusing.

It shows David Heaton, who was secretly filmed at a London conference "101 Ideas for Personal Tax Planning" a few months ago, offering tips on how to keep money "out of the chancellor's grubby mitts".

Nothing wrong with that at all, except that in today's febrile atmosphere (whipped up by sound bite politicians and the media) over tax avoidance Mr Heaton then made an unfortunate career move. Two months after the conference he then joined an HMRC panel advising HMRC and the courts about artificial and aggressive tax avoidance.

In past days such a move would not cause the bat of an eyelid. However, the political atmosphere is different and as such Mr Heaton has resigned from his HMRC role.

The BBC reports that Mr Heaton was caught on camera describing a maternity scheme he called the Bump Plan.

"Ninety per cent of what you pay out ends up with the employee. You can't really knock that one."

By deliberately timing bonuses to enable an increased rebate on maternity pay, the tax paid on the bonus would effectively fall from 41.8% to just 8.4%, he explained.

HMRC have stated that it would regard such a scheme as "an abuse" and would challenge anyone using it.

David Gauke said:

"Mr Heaton's statements are directly at odds with the government's approach to tackling tax avoidance, therefore it is right that Mr Heaton resigns from his position."

Margaret Hodge said she was "shocked" by Mr Heaton's comments.

"This is an absolutely classic example of where government passes a law with a particular intent and the tax advisers then abuse that and use it for a purpose that was never intended by government."

It seems to me that if HMRC wants to keep up with the real world, it should welcome people such as Mr Heaton with open arms. Unfortunately politics has come before common sense.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Tax Avoidance and Evasion - What's The Government Doing?

Those of you who are confused and/or wondering about what the government is doing wrt tax avoidance and tax evasion should fret no longer, the Treasury have published this "easy on the eye" interactive graphic.

Simply hover over any aspect that interest you and a black dot giving you more details will appear.

A larger image can be viewed via this link.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Mark Hall Warns of The Tail Wagging The Dog

In August Mark Hall, HMRC's outgoing Chief Information Officer (CIO) gave his incoming replacement (Mark Dearnley) some advice about the major challenges facing HMRC for when he arrives in October from Vodafone.

Was that the last that we would hear from Hall?

Apparently not, this week he has been speaking at Gartner’s Outsourcing & Strategic Partnerships Summit in London, where he offered some sage (a little IT pun there..very little) advice to HMRC and its Aspire contractors (mainly Capgemini).

Aspire (which costs £700M per annum) was set up in 2004, with prime contractor Capgemini delivering much of HMRC’s IT services via an ecosystem of suppliers that include BT, Fujitsu, and Level 3. The contract is due for renewal in 2017, and is currently being restructured.

Hall described it as a "child of its time", hardly a ringing endorsement, and warned of supplier dependency wherein the supplier (Capgemini) is the integrator of what HMRC does (a case of the tail wagging the dog)

He noted that suppliers are now offering "vanilla" services (ie basic services), and noted that most of the innovation is coming from SMEs and start-up businesses. Seemingly large suppliers are “tied up in knots” and they are still selling IT in verticals. Hall is of the view that working with SMEs, that have innovative products and ideas, would be beneficial.

Hall is quoted by Computer World UK:

“Our outsourcing partners have been there when we have needed them, they’ve been with us in the good times and they have been with us in the tough times. That’s a lot of what the contract was designed for in the early 2000s. The challenge is that the whole world is moving and changing around this contract.

It is really difficult to keep pace with the market. Go back to 2001, how many people would have put cloud-based services in their contracts at that point? How many people would have thought about the social networking aspect? You wouldn’t. The contract was designed to be flexible, but was designed in a completely different paradigm than we face today.

It’s also created supplier dependency – we’ve got a great partner (Capgemini), but our challenge is that our partner is the prime integrator of what we do, so a lot of the knowledge and a lot of the experience rests with the supplier. It’s a challenge about how you bring innovation into delivery.

What we have done is a lot of outsourcing-based work, but the challenge is how to bring innovation, and if I’m being slightly blunt, innovation from SIs and large vendors that are trying to sell us the vanilla type IT.

Most innovation is coming from start-ups and SMEs, it’s not coming from the large traditional vendors. So there’s a challenge about how you get those people into a large outsourcing arrangement. We recently ran an event where we brought in 12 small businesses and ran an innovation session with them for a day, and we are now taking all those 12 forward in terms of ideas they are developing.

But it’s taking that radical thought to really put those people in. If you are a small business of 10 people with a really great idea, imagine coming into an organisation like HMRC that start to talk to you about risk, challenges, availability – it all becomes quite difficult. So we are doing a lot of incubator work to try and help those businesses.”

In other words HMRC's IT future, if it wishes to succeed, lies with SME's not large suppliers.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

RTI and Universal Credits

As loyal readers know, RTI and Universal Credits are all part of the same beast and the fates of both affect the government, HMRC and the DWP.

The overall aim of PAYE Real Time Information and Universal Credits is to make the administration easier for HMRC and DWP and to reduce fraud by ensuring that employees and businesses pay tax more accurately, whilst claimants receive the benefits to which they are entitled.

Thus it is interesting to note that Cameron has publicly indicated that the UC deadline of 2017, being zealously proselytised by Iain Duncan Smith, may in fact not really be achievable.

Gosh, really?

Cameron told the Commons work and pension select committee that he was not "religious" about plans to roll out the universal credit across the country by 2017.

He is quoted by the Guardian:

"The secretary of state was questioned very closely in the House of Commons. That is the department's position – they are shooting for 2017.

But the key thing is getting the early part of the introduction right. The more you can test out and hold pathfinders and get people on to universal budget and then start to take existing benefit recipients on to universal credit – the more you can get that right in the early years, the more chance you have of hitting your target of total rollout.

My view is this is a good reform that will make work pay, that is widely supported across politics and other sectors. So we need to get it right. But we shouldn't be religious about timings. We should be religious as it were about the overall concept of what we are trying to do."

Personally speaking I don't think governments should be "religious" at all, they should be pragmatic.


Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Hargreaves Lansdown Challenges HMRC's Discount Tax

In March I noted that as from 6 April 2013 fund investors face paying income tax on "loyalty bonuses" paid by fund supermarkets, after HMRC ruled that the payments are "annual payments" and should therefore be taxed as income.

Hargreaves Lansdown (the UK's largest fund supermarket) has taken advice from counsel and decided to challenge HMRC's "discount tax", as the tax threatens their ability to pay loyalty bonuses and offer discounts on fund charges.

Chief executive Ian Gorham is quoted by Citywire:

"The introduction of the 'discount tax' was extremely disappointing news and an attack on the small investor. The 'discount tax' is anti-competitive. Loyalty bonuses have been hugely popular with investors and helped them save money on investing in their favourite funds.

We feel it’s important to take a stand on behalf of investors. When we introduced loyalty bonuses we consulted on its tax position and it was clear, as a refund of charges, it should not be subject to taxation."

Hargreaves Lansdown believes that it has saved investors over £1 billion in discounts and loyalty bonuses.

The legal challenge, unsurprisingly, is expected to take several months. The tax due to HMRC is being held in a fund while the issue is resolved. If Hargreaves Lansdown loses, the money will be paid to HMRC otherwise it will be returned to its clients.


Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Corporation Tax Yield From Investigations Falls

The FT reports that HMRC's large-business service, which deals with the 770 largest UK  businesses, collected an extra £3.17bn in tax in 2012-13 from its investigations, an 8% drop from £3.44bn the year before – and a 25% drop on 2010-11. 

 

HMRC quite rightly have pointed out that the yield fluctuated because it involved a relatively small number of cases that were responsible for a large proportion of revenues and the time to resolve issues was uncertain, particularly if litigation was involved.

“HMRC’s job is to enforce the large-business tax rules as passed by parliament. We do this extremely effectively, bringing in £23bn additional revenues from large businesses since 2010 alone. 

HMRC exceeded its target for additional revenue raised from large businesses as a whole in 2012/13 and we have year-on-year increases in our targets for the next two years. The actual amount of yield will naturally fluctuate from year to year, depending particularly on major cases where inquiries are ongoing.”

Naturally the yield will vary from year to year, HMRC is not a commercial enterprise that seeks to increase its revenue each year.

Sadly, thanks to the ongoing political campaign waged by those who should know better about companies paying a mythical "fair share" of tax and the general hysteria in the media whipped up by those who know nothing about corporation tax, HMRC will doubtlessly be unfairly and wrongly criticised for the fall in yield.

The reality is that as tax is reduced, as corporation tax has been, so is the incentive for companies to engage in "aggressive tax planning".

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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 Issues Missed RTI Deadline Letters

HMRC is sending out around 167,000 letters this month to employers who have missed one or more deadlines for reporting PAYE.

As one Twitter wag commented, it is ironic that a government that takes a year or more to respond to enquiries and to issue reports etc expects the rest of us to report in real time.

As per HMRC:

"More than 1.6 million employer PAYE schemes, covering over 40 million individual records, are already reporting in real time since the launch of new reporting requirements in April, and any employers who have failed to follow the new process have been urged to act now by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

Employers or agents (acting on behalf of their clients) who have set up unused PAYE schemes should contact HMRC to close them. 

This month, around 167,000 employers who have missed one or more deadlines for reporting PAYE will receive a letter. Employers need to act now and start reporting in real time. If employers have not reported because they don’t pay anyone, the PAYE scheme has closed or it is no longer operating, they still need to let HMRC know by calling our Employer Helpline. More information can be found here.

HMRC’s Director General for Personal Tax, Ruth Owen, said
“Over 85 per cent of employers are now reporting PAYE in real time but our records show that 167,000 employers have yet to send us a PAYE submission. Reporting PAYE in real time makes it easier for employers to pay HMRC the right amount and avoid late payments and penalties.

“If agents have set up, on behalf of their clients, PAYE schemes that have never been used - or their clients’ PAYE schemes have now ceased - they should call HMRC to close the scheme.”

PAYE information reported in real time is already being used by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to calculate Universal Credit amounts paid to people in its pathfinder pilot in the north west of England, ensuring the amount of benefit accurately reflects their level of income.

Notes for editors
1.  Employers who have already missed a deadline for reporting PAYE information received a letter in June. We also wrote to all employers in October 2012, and again in February 2013, to let them know how to prepare.
2.  Real Time Information (RTI) represents the biggest change to the payroll system in over 60 years. It is designed to reflect the labour market fluidity of the 21st century and deliver improved accuracy to employers and employees. RTI means employers and pension providers report deductions and payments they make to HMRC at the time they are made, rather than after the end of the tax year, as at present. This enables the tax system to better ensure the right tax is being taken at source.
3.  The RTI pilot was launched in April 2012 with just 10 employers and, by the end of the pilot on 5 April 2013, over six million individual records were being reported in real time.
4.  HMRC believes many of these PAYE schemes can be closed because they don’t have any employees linked to them. However, it is important to note that there are some employers who are required to operate a PAYE scheme for expenses and benefits. In this case, employers should either submit a nil Employer Payment Summary (EPS) each month or contact us to change the scheme to annual and then send us a nil EPS once a year.
5.  HMRC is not writing to employers who have registered their PAYE scheme as an annual scheme."

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

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However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

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HMRC To Access Credit Card Records

As from 1 September HMRC now has the power to access credit and debit card records paid to UK business dating back four years.

HMRC claim that no personal data, such as cardholder information or card numbers, will be collected. However, it will be able to acquire information relating to the number and value of transactions completed by any individual trader.

HMRC says it will analyse the data by cross-referencing and comparing with information it already holds to flag up and subsequently investigate noticeable differences.

Syria vote absentee David Gauke is quoted by economia:

“Tax evasion and the hidden economy cost the taxpayer £9bn a year. While the majority of traders are honest, they may find themselves undercut by the minority who seek to lower prices by cheating the tax system. 

The government has given HMRC nearly £1bn to tackle fraud and evasion, and these new powers give HMRC an extra tool to ensure a level playing field between businesses, and also reducing opportunities for those who try and cheat the system.” 

The first requests for the data will be sent to merchant acquirers this week and from next year this will be an annual request.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance




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 Customer Service

HMRC recently published its half yearly briefing entitled "How are we doing? HMRC's April to June 2013 performance".

It blames less than stellar customer service levels (we are not "customers"!) on the extra work caused by RTI.

That being said HMRC brought in an extra £4BN in tax revenue over the quarter. However, HMRC handled 77.6 % of all contact centre call attempts during the period (its target being 90%!). This sub par performance was blamed on:

- "technology related issues"
- putting more people on employer helplines during the introduction of RTI

HMRC has delayed the introduction of new automated speech features on phone lines which it originally planned to bring in at this time, so it could answer more calls. These are now being trialled and will be rolled out later in the year.

Suffice to say, with the reallocation of staff to call centres, HMRC's post handling has suffered only 70.3% of it mail has been cleared with 15 days (its target being 80%).

Much like a balloon, if you squeeze one part of HMRC another part will pop!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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 31 Year Old "Child"

My thanks to a loyal reader who shared this experience about being chased by HMRC over child benefit for a "child" who is in fact 31 years old!

"HMRC need a radical over haul - I have just spent 31.42 minutes on the phone (29 of those on hold) to ask why I have received a letter about Child Benefit, my only child is 31. 

Apparently it was a mistake, I pointed out that as a tax payer I objected to my money being wasted in this way. I was told the call was being recorded - I said this was excellent news because if this came back to haunt me in the form of HMRC chasing me for money I could not possibly owe them I would be asking for copies of the recording."

Aside from the error itself (let's face it, errors happen in all organisations), it seems that HMRC's call answering time is still an issue.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

RTI Survey Deadline Extended

Following requests from employers and stakeholders, HMRC has extended the closing date of its RTI survey from 13 September 2013 to 20 September 2013.

The question is, once the survey is closed, and HMRC has analysed the results, will HMRC publish the results?

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"