The Joy of Whiteboards

My thanks to the loyal reader who recently shared his/her views on HMRC's whiteboard fetish:

"Ah, the indomitable whiteboards, remember them well, created hazards to staff in inverse proportion to any gains from having the damn things;

trip hazard - to such an extent that the protruding feet had to be covered with high viz hazard marking yellow/black tape, didn't cure the problem, made it your fault for not observing a clearly marked hazard!

injury by collapse of heavy object - these things were like a mini engineering project to put together, if incorrectly assembled including not torquing the nuts correctly, these heavy items could collapse when being touched (like writing on them) let alone when being moved e.g. because they were blocking or obstructing fire exits, solutions, supposedly only authorised staff to complete the 'meccano kit' having first read and signed, in blood, the instructions, as for obstructing fire exits, well, if there's a fire move the bloody thing, just pray it doesn't disable the fleeing staff in the process!

blocking/obstructing fire exits - they really know how to undertake risk assessments in HMRC, not!

writing on whiteboards in ink colours difficult to read - self applied cure, don't bother reading them...

then there was the 4-sided demon on castors that was rolled around with graphs and sound bites plastered all over it - this abomination had cost £1800 and was a laughing stock amongst staff.

Still, makes you wonder?

Management, my arse, they do make Kermit & Co. look efficient though."

Halcyon days by the sound of it!

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 "Common Sense"

As part of what it terms a ‘common sense approach’, HMRC says all unincorporated businesses and landlords with annual incomes below £10,000 will be entirely exempted from the new obligations for quarterl reporting.

All very nice maybe. However, £10K is piss pathetically low.

Why on earth choose such a low threshold?

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"

Making Tax Digital Timetable

HMRC's timetable for making tax digital has been summarised by CCH (sorry folks I can't post the link on my mobile).

What could possibly go wrong?
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 Rushes Digital Plans

HMRC's plans for making tax digital are being rushed at an unseemly pace.

The deadline for responding to the six consultations is 7 November.

Hardly enough time to comment thoughtfully!
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 Seven Pillars of Wisdom

HMRC in it's effort to make tax digital has issued seven documents comprising six consultations.

Good luck!

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"

Brighton and Hove Albion Named and Shamed

Brighton and Hove Albion claim they have been “named and shamed” by HMRC for being “over-generous” with expenses to work experience staff.

The club were named among 198 companies in what the HMRC is calling their biggest list ever of firms not paying minimum wage.

Albion has been accused of owing more than £2,800 to one worker, but club officials said they were “very disappointed to be named” having already made representations to Government officials.

Responding to The Argus, the club said it had been “over generous” in paying the expenses of an individual on a work experience placement at the club two years ago.

The club said the minor administrative error was corrected by the club as soon as possible and they sought external legal advice in which they were instructed they had not breached employment regulations.

A club spokesman said because of the HMRC's decision, which the club are unable to appeal, Albion had suspended its work experience programme and been forced to close the door to “many graduates seeking such opportunities”.

Reading between the lines it appears that the club attempted to avoid tax payments on a salary by putting the payments in expenses. Rightly or wrongly HMRC have decided to name and shame, the result being that the club won't operate a work experience programme anymore because it's simply too complex and time consuming to comply with the bureaucracy.


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"

A Question of Trust

In the move towards universal digital tax accounts for business, HMRC is trying to force companies to provide bank details on their corporation tax returns.

Although the majority of businesses submit their corporation tax return online, most automatic repayments of corporation tax are made by cheque rather than by electronic payment. CCH Daily notes that the latest research for HMRC shows that businesses on the whole do not provide their bank details when the requirement is not mandatory.

Why therefore would it be an issue if HMRC were to insist that businesses provide bank details.

Sadly it comes down to trust, or rather a lack of trust about what HMRC might do with those details.

Agents are concerned that once HMRC had been provided with bank details ‘they could use them to take future payments without seeking permission’, and there are also concerns about data security of online payments.

Do you trust HMRC with your bank details?

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 £14 Trillion Tax Demand

My sympathies to Giles Hembrough, a railway signal tester in Bristol, who received a £14 Trillion tax bill from HMRC last weekend (more than the US economy is worth).

The Bristol Post quotes the HMRC letter:

"Although we are changing your tax code you may still not pay enough tax by 5 April 2017.

We think the amount you owe HMRC is £14,301,369,864,489.03.

We will let you know if this amount is right when we look at your tax return for the year."

When Mr Hembrough rang HMRC to query it, the lady on the end of the line apparently said:

"'Oh that is a big amount, it looks like someone has fallen asleep on the keyboard!"

The future's bright, the future's digital!
 

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"

Equality and Diversity

Jon Thompson, HMRC chief executive and permanent secretary, is worried about diversity within HMRC.

A Freedom of Information request by economia in 2014 showed that 6% of HMRC staff came from a black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) background, compared to a national workforce average of 10%.

Thompson, some two years after that request, is quoted as saying:

"We should be recruiting from all sections of society, not just people who’ve done the ‘right’ degree at the ‘right’ university.” 

HMRC claims that its new programme will help it better reflect its "customer" base. It will review recruitment and selection practices to attract and appoint from a diverse applicant pool. It also says it will improve its diversity data and declarations across all lines of business.

It has also made clear that it wants to improve its approach towards customer equality, including providing assisted digital avenues and appropriate provision for the digitally excluded.

Will "customer equality" also extend to HMRC treating individual taxpayers and SME's in the same way as HMRC treats large companies such as Vodafone?

No, I thought not!

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 Standard For Tax Agents

Oblivious to the fact that HMRC is utter shite, HMRC has decided that its energies are best spent on telling others what it expects of them.

As such it has penned a "Standard For Agents":

"HMRC expects high standards that promote tax compliance from anyone who offers to represent or give advice to other taxpayers."

It seems that HMRC has a sense of humour.

Let us put our collective minds together and pen a standard for HMRC, I'll start the ball rolling:

Communications

• We expect HMRC to answer the phone within 30 seconds of dialling.

• We expect HMRC to respond to written correspondence within 5 working days.

• We expect HMRC to accpet and respond to emails.

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 Dearnley Quits HMRC

In June this year I wrote about Mark Dearnley's (HMRC's chief digital and information officer who joined in October 2013 from Vodafone) appearance before PAC:

"Dearnley told PAC this week that the new company had been set up specifically to provide "a better employment offer for the staff coming in from the private sector", including better base pay and pensions than could be expected as direct employees of HMRC.

However, he is quoted by Public Technology:

"It is limited by the pay cap.
But it does have a different salary scale and remuneration structure, so in that, we've been able to put together what we believe is a much more appropriate offer for people coming in from the private sector."

Adding:

"I'm sure this will be an ongoing topic of conversation with the Treasury over the next few years."

His last comment about having an ongoing discussion with the Treasury for years is somewhat ironic, as it transpires he is leaving HMRC in September for pastures new in the private sector.

This may cause a few headaches within HMRC, as PAC warned that management needs to be stable during the transition from Aspire. As per PAC:

“HMRC is now making progress in replacing the Aspire contract, but moving to a new model of IT provision remains a substantial undertaking which will require firm and consistent leadership.

As we have seen from elsewhere in government, one of the main factors that determines the success of complex programmes such as this is the quality and stability of their leadership.”

PAC must have had an inkling that he was about to abandon ship, as they asked HMRC at the time if was going to stay. HMRC rresponded that they were in negotiations with him!

As per Computer Weekly, Dearnley gave a valedictory statement about his almost 3 years in HMRC:

"We have replaced our outdated internal IT, launched digital tax accounts for individuals and businesses, and have successfully concluded negotiations to dismantle the Aspire IT contract, taking more direct control of the design and delivery of our digital technology services at huge cost savings for HMRC.

We have also built one of the strongest digital technology teams in the world, and I am confident that they will continue to deliver HMRC’s IT transformation at pace.”

Any guesses as to which company he will join?

Who knows, maybe he will get to sell into HMRC advice and/or software as it moves towards its glorious digital future?

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 Only Accepts Online Pension Fixed Protection Applications

The FT reports that pension savers must now apply online to protect retirement funds from tax charges for breaches of the new lower lifetime allowance.

As from April 2016, the allowance fell from £1.25m to £1m.

Last week HMRC launched an online service for savers to lock into a higher lifetime allowance than is currently in place. However, HMRC will now only accept online applications for Fixed Protection; those that are received on paper will be returned.

For more information on how to protect your lifetime allowance, visit gov.uk/guidance/pension-schemes-protect-your-lifetime-allowance

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"