The FT reports that research from UHY Hacker Young, shows as at the end of June 681,000 individuals and companies had arranged ‘Time to Pay’ agreements with HMRC.
These agreements allow taxpayers to pay their taxes over an agreed period of time, but UHY claims the process can be “extremely difficult to negotiate”.
The firm thought the high number was down to uncertainty over Brexit and the subsequent broader slowdown of the economy.
UHY thought HMRC’s controversial loan charge was also likely to have caused a surge in the number of taxpayers forced to negotiate ‘Time to Pay’ arrangements. However, this appears not to be the case, as HMRC has rebutted this as repayment plans for the loan charge differ to the 'Time to Pay' arrangements.
Tax does have to be taxing.
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But I thought that Brexit was a glorious financial opportunity for the nation.
ReplyDeleteSurely nobody is suggesting that Johnson, Farage and Rees-Mogg were lying to us.
As a former HMRC officer - DMB/Field Force & Compliance - this figure does seem extremely high. I appreciate not all of the 681k taxpayers will be businesses, but the majority will be. Are there really so many viable businesses with short term, one-off, cashflow problems? Surely not, and it's indicative of an organisation which has lost its way. Too many low quality, poorly trained frontline debt collectors unable to stand up to people and do the job their paid for. Meanwhile many of the managers, while they're not facilitating bullying of colleagues, they are collecting 'competencies' for their next promotion.
ReplyDeleteGoing soft is not good news for taxpayers either. The country has to borrow more. And it's political - seen it all before. While some taxpayers are obviously ripping the pi*s out of the incompetent HMRC at the moment, sooner or later the tide will turn and a more draconian approach will be trialled. Should you be a viable business with a short term, one-off, cashflow problem during that period, HMRC will show no mercy. One extreme to the other, always inconsistent; that's the disaster of a department Gordon Brown created back in 2005! It's a department which serves the interests of nobody other than many of the bullying, gravy train riding, managers.
681,000 x £2,500 = £1,702,500,000
ReplyDeletethats if the average debt is so low, somehow I would think the average debt is higher.
Difficult to comment on HMRC's debt collection 'talent' in the present, but in numerous years at HMRC not that long ago, firstly as a Distraint Officer, then in the rebranded Field 'Force', I have to say that 80% of the staff are about as effective as a chocolate teapot (with far too many scared of their own shadow). Until that changes with more challenging recruitment and/or more pay, or even outsourcing, then things will only get worse.
ReplyDeleteHaving done TTP arrangements for clients recently, not only is it difficult, error prone, frustrating in terms of random outcomes and very time consuming, in the end the Computer Says No quite a lot.
ReplyDelete