A damning report issued by the National Audit Office (NAO) on HMRC's Making Tax Digital (MTD) scheme suggested it is expected to cost around five times its original 2016 budget and excluded upfront costs of £1.5bn from its business cases.
Accounting bodies such as the Chartered Institute of Taxation have labelled the project “out of control” and called for HMRC to “pause and take stock”, backing the NAO’s call for a separate business case for MTD for income tax self assessment.
As per the report:
"HMRC’s initial timeframe for MTD was unrealistic. It did not allow sufficient time for HMRC to explore the full range of options that would achieve the programme’s aims and select one that it could implement.
Each announcement has set an ambitious timeframe for delivery, with several aspects of the MTD programme to be delivered in parallel. The repeated delays and rephasing of MTD has undermined its credibility and increased its costs. There is a risk that delivery partners and taxpayers disengage from a programme that can only succeed if those groups significantly change their behaviour. Higher costs were not inevitable, had HMRC taken more time to plan and consider the realism of the options.
HMRC has not demonstrated the programme offers the best value for money for digitalising the tax system, with later business cases significantly underplaying the total cost to customers of making the change. The programme should now develop a robust business case which includes a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the costs to customers of implementing MTD. Planning has been too high-level and the risk remains that further delays will add costs and defer benefits. HMRC is reviewing how MTD will work for businesses and landlords with lower Self Assessment income. It should take this opportunity to assess how far the programme is improving services, reducing burdens, and making the tax system easier to comply with and use lessons from this review to ensure the wider programme is finally on track to secure the benefits it has long promised."
Both HMRC and MTD need to be scrapped, neither are fit for purpose!
Tax does have to be taxing.
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MTD for Self Assessment might be quietly dropped or subject to further 'review'. The top brass will be lucky to keep their cushy numbers as it is.
ReplyDeleteCosts to the Exchequer in the Digital Utopia is off the charts. 1.5 Billion. £1,500 Million Quid. For what? The previous commenter rightly mentioned 30,000 job cuts. You could buy a lot of AO's with that sort of money.