Simple!

Errmm...here is a story as per Tax-News.com.

Seemingly a 13 year project undertaken by HMRC to rewrite tax law (with the objective of making it easier to understand) is soon to come to a close.

Well, Timms is impressed and notes that "direct tax legislation is now far more accessible and easier to apply..."

What say you "Joe Public"?

After 13 years of activity, the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Tax Law Rewrite Project is to end next year, the Treasury has announced.

Launched in 1996, the project is responsible for rewriting direct tax legislation, to make it clearer and easier for users to understand.

“The Tax Law Rewrite project has played a key role in modernising our tax legislation and its work has rightly been widely praised,” commented Stephen Timms, Financial Secretary to the Treasury. "The mainstream direct tax legislation is now far more accessible and easier to apply than the legislation that went before and when the project’s next two Bills are enacted, the time will be right to bring this work to an end.

Since its creation, the project has resulted in 6 pieces of legislation and tax regulations being rewritten, including: The Capital Allowances Act 2001; The Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003; The Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005; The Income Tax Act 2007; The Corporation Tax Act 2009; and The PAYE Regulations.

The main goals of the project are to reproduce tax legislation in a clearer, more logical tax structure with use of plain language while attempting not to alter the main tax policies.

A high level Steering Committee, chaired by Lord Newton of Braintree, oversees the project. A Consultative Committee, consisting of representative bodies and other interested parties, also meets on a regular basis to consider issues and the draft legislation in more detail.

“With the completion of the project’s work, legislation for the mainstream direct taxes will now be much easier for users to navigate and understand,” Timms continued. “This is a very significant achievement and I am grateful for the contribution of everyone involved in it.”

The second Corporation Tax Bill and the Taxation (International and Other Provisions) Bill, which rewrites provisions that deal mainly with international taxation issues, is expected to be enacted in the spring of 2010.

Work currently on hand will be completed by the end of 2009/10, with only minor amendments to existing rewritten legislation to be undertaken after that, the Treasury informed.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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TAXWISE 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 Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

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Computer Glitch Kills Tax Credit Claimant

HMRC have found a neat way to reduce the amount of money paid out via tax credits. They kill people off, not physically but by wiping them from their computer records.

Carol Buchanan, a part time cleaner, found this to her cost recently when she was told at her local Post Office that she couldn't collect her working tax credit because she was dead.

Ms Buchanan was also told that no emergency credit payment could be made, because she had already been wiped off the computer system.

HMRC have yet to give her a timescale to resolve this cock up, and it is likely that she will be without her tax credit for several weeks.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE 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 Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

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"

Absurd

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) have issued a press release stating that it is absurd that HMRC impose compulsory online filing during a recession.

It notes that HMRC plans to adopt Inline XBRL (or iXBRL) would be the first large-scale iXBRL implementation worldwide. Given HMRC's rather rickety IT systems, how wise is this without thorough embedding and testing?

Governments and their departments/organs of state don't "do IT"...PERIOD!

News Release – ICAS: Imposing compulsory online tax filing during a recession is absurd

It is absurd to require businesses struggling during a recession to introduce a mandatory online tax filing system. That's the view of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) in response to an HMRC consultation on draft laws requiring all companies to submit statutory accounts and tax computations in a revolutionary new data format (XBRL) by April 2011.

HMRC urged to reconsider its plans

ICAS objects to the additional burdens, costs and risks of this during the current recession – when many businesses are struggling to survive and should be concentrating their management expertise on the much more pressing and important task of maintaining productivity and employment.

Donald Drysdale, Assistant Director at ICAS and a Chartered IT Professional, said:

"In his Review of HMRC Online Services, Lord Carter of Coles recommended the use of XBRL, but emphasised that the new standard should not be imposed until it had been implemented and had bedded down. He also noted that other improvements would be needed before the service would meet the needs of tax agents.

Many companies won't be ready for this. It is absurd to require businesses struggling during a recession to introduce this.

XBRL has been used relatively sparingly to date, and HMRC plans to adopt Inline XBRL (or iXBRL) would be the first large-scale iXBRL implementation worldwide, so the technology certainly hasn't been adequately tried, tested and proven to be reliable.
It falls far short of Lord Carter's criteria."

ICAS has been exploring this topic with HMRC for more than two years. The Institute was instrumental in establishing tripartite discussions among Government, the tax profession and software vendors, but now reports widespread concerns that software solutions for preparing iXBRL-based statutory accounts will not be available in time.

Drysdale added:

"It's misguided and disproportionate to mandate iXBRL-based online filing by all companies as early as April 2011.

We've urged HMRC to reconsider its plans in the light of the relatively immature market position of XBRL, and we've asked that Ministers shift to a gradual voluntary adoption of iXBRL filing until the new software for tax and accounts preparation
has been properly tried and tested."

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE 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 Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

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"

Consultation

HMRC published their Consultation Responses Document to its draft Charter last week.

The consultation attracted an unprecedented 1900 responses:

– 124 online,
- 1748 youth (aged 15-24 years), and
- 54 written responses from representative bodies, businesses and individuals (including HMRC staff).

I am surprised that 15 year olds have even the slightest understanding/interest in matters concerning taxation.

Two phrases:

- "pursue relentlessly", and
- "bend or break the rules"

caused some angst amongst the respondents. HMRC have modified them accordingly:

"3.31 The phrase 'pursue relentlessly' is part of the HMRC Vision. The language is appropriate for internal use and it accurately reflects our role. Given the concerns expressed we have changed the term to 'tackle' in the Charter, however the sentiment remains the same.

3.32 The phrase 'bend or break the rules' is also part of the HMRC Vision. Internally HMRC staff understand the difference between evasion and avoidance.

We have amended the wording in the Charter to make a clearer distinction for an external audience between 'deliberately break the rules' and those who 'bend the rules' And the additional notes make more clear our approach to tax avoidance as compared to tax evasion."

Given this change in the Charter is not also appropriate that the HMRC Vision is also changed to reflect this, lest it cause confusion internally?

I would also note that the revised version now states:

"distinguish between legitimately trying to pay the lowest amount and bending the rules through tax avoidance".

Tax avoidance is legitimate, the above implies that it is illegal.

BTW am I seeing things, or is that Barack Obama in the top right hand picture on page one?;)

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE 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 Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

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"

Is This a Record?

Can anyone beat this 13 month delay in receiving a response from HMRC?

"Ken - many weeks for a reply is very optimistic!

I sent in a refund claim for my wife when she left her job and we got a reply 13 months later and an apology for the delay due to the amount of post! Dreadful service:(

Accountants Hampshire
Hampshire Accountants"

There's a special T shirt up for grabs if you can beat it.


Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE 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 Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

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"

£1.6BN Cock Up

It seems that approximately 4.5M taxpayers are owed around £1.6BN by HMRC, as a result of a tax coding error.

The National Audit Office estimates that in addition to the 4.5M who have overpaid tax, there are around 1.5M who have underpaid around £400M of tax.

Good luck to those who try to reclaim their overpayments, this may well take some time as written communications sent to HMRC tend to take many weeks to action.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

What is TAXWISE?

TAXWISE 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 Taxwise

Tax Investigation for Dummies, by Nick Morgan, provides a good and easy to read guide for anyone caught up in an HMRC tax investigation. A must read for any Self Assessment taxpayer.

Click the link to read about: Tax Investigation for Dummies

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"