Rewarding Failure - Bonus Season at HMRC

Oh the joys of the bonus season, when you are rewarded for your success and for meeting your KPI's.

Well that's the theory.

However, in reality there are some organisations that are more than happy to reward failure.

Aside from our "respected" financial institutions that mis-sell insurance, endowments, pensions, loans, sub prime debt etc there is another organ that is happy to reward failure.

Can you guess which one that is?

Yes, that's right, our old chums at HMRC.

Those running the organ of the state that lost 25 million data records, leaves months of post unopened and has screwed up the tax credit system have still been given bonuses.

The Treasury has paid out £3.1M to top civil servants and £19M to staff at HMRC.

The rewards have been agreed by the Cabinet Office, as part of a package to encourage the most senior civil servants to meet government targets set by the Treasury.

Well done lads!

Well deserved!

Tax does have to be taxing.

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 Farking Mess!

Poor old HMRC and wee Gordon "Smiler" Brown, they just can't seem to get anything right at the moment. One of wee Gordie's "flagship" schemes, the "respected" tax credit scheme, has taken another well deserved battering.

The National Audit Office (NAO) has lambasted the scheme, noting that it is losing over £1.5BN a year as a result of overpayments and fraudulent claims.

To add insult to injury, Tim Burr (head of the NAO) has refused to sign off the annual accounts of HMRC because of its appalling mistakes and cock ups.

How embarrassing for an organisation that expects its "customers" to have perfect records!

Brown's lackeys in parliament were quick to dismiss this as....errmmmm......."teething troubles".

Are they taking the piss here?

Some "teething troubles", when up to £1.54BN (that's over 8% of the total) of tax credit payments were wasted because of error and fraud during the 2006-07 financial year.

As at March this year, £4.3BN remained to be recovered from claimants.

Jane Kennedy, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said that HMRC had been given until 2011 to cut the level of error and fraud to 5% (it currently stands at 7.6%)

Is she taking the piss?

-5% is way too lax a target

-2011 is hardly a stretching deadline

Pathetic by anyone's standards!

Dump these time wasting, money wasting and shoddily administered credits; increase the personal allowances instead.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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"

Farking Stupid!

My sympathies with the employee of HMRC who posted this comment, about call centre problems, 3 days ago on Audio Talk.

"What fucking next. I work for H Em Arse Sea.

'This is our busiest year so far......................' , 'The calls continue to increase.....................'

The corporate brain cell hasn't been able to figure the fucker out. If you put so much pressure on people to reduce call handling times, some people will inevitably hang up on people to make the calls shorter. So, it follows that these people will call back again and again, and again. There are so many calls on the network that shouldn't be there. Dohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

How fucking stupid can people be??

They talk about us as a business. I'm sorry but businesses have to be much more effective than this.

Oh well........................... "

Rather interestingly the original post has since been removed from the board.

I wonder why?

Lucky I spotted it in time.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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"

Tripping With HMRC

I was heartened and amused when I first read the headline about HMRC taking trips, I naively thought that there exists an element within HMRC that is a little bit rebellious and free spirited.

However, I was brought back to earth speedily with a bump when I realised that this story was in fact about travel expenses.

Ho hum!

Anyhoo, it seems that HMRC managed to run up a bill last year (at our expense) of more than £1.7M on trips abroad.

£1,751,257 was spent on flights, accommodation, and meals for overseas visits during the 2007/08 financial year. However, the actual spend will be significantly higher because HMRC (and this bit is the real killer) claims that it could not supply details of hotel bills for the first three months.

Funny how the humble taxpayer, when asked to justify expense write offs etc, is expected to have every single invoice and bill to hand though isn't it?

Treasury Minister Jane Kennedy also said that facts on where officials travelled could not be disclosed, for "policy and operational reasons".

Bullshit!

Similar details have been released previously.

One rule for HMRC, another for the taxpayer!

Covert footage of HMRC on a recent trip to Amsterdam



Tax does have to be taxing.

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"

Blunders R Us

Malcolm Hurlston, chairman of the Employee Share Ownership Centre, is none too impressed with HMRC. He is of the view that blunders by HMRC have resulted in a sharp fall in the value of share options made by small firms under the terms of the Enterprise Management Initiative (EMI) scheme.

Mr Hurlston pulls no punches, and accuses HMRC of a "botched statistical analysis".

The initial value of options granted during 2005-06 has been reduced from £430M to £280M with the average value cut from £16K to £10K per employee.

A review of the methods used in calculating the value of the options has identified a number of blunders in EMI and other schemes, including company and discretionary share option schemes where the value of 2004-05 options was reduced from £760M to £600M and from £760M to £590M in 2005-06.

The tax system is stifling Britain's enterprise culture.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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"

Draconian Penalties

Take heed fellow taxpayers, those of you who are late filing returns or paying your tax demands may well face draconian tax-geared penalties under recent proposals put forward by HMRC.

The penalties for late filing might start after six months, potentially rising to 100% of the tax bill after a year in cases where taxpayers had deliberately failed to file returns.

Needless to say, these proposal have not gone down well with those who deal with HMRC on a daily basis. John Whiting of PwC said that he objected "very strongly" to tax-based penalties for late returns.

For why?

Aha, you see dear readers there is an additional charge..taxpayers will also be charged interest based on the amount of tax due.

A double whammy!

Why so greedy HMRC?

As I have said before the government is broke, it desperately needs as much extra revenue as possible to fund its ill thought out spending programmes and pay for its out of control consultancy fees.

On top of the fines mentioned above for late returns, taxpayers also face penalties for late payment that could rise to 10-30% of the unpaid tax after a year.

Roy Maugham of UHY Hacker Young called the proposed "draconian".

Chas Roy-Chowdhury of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants also noted that HMRC is applying one rule for itself, but another for the taxpayer. He said the "huge disparity" in interest rates charged on overdue tax and paid to taxpayers owed repayments was unjustified.

"When taxpayers make a mistake they are penalised. There needs to be an understanding that when [the Revenue] makes a mistake they are equally penalised."

HMRC claim that the differential is needed to discourage taxpayers from depositing money with the Revenue, in order to obtain a higher rate of return than was available commercially. Nice idea, but the rate discrepancy doesn't have to be so much to do that.

Why not simply charge and offer the same interest rate (eg LIBOR plus 1%) for late returns and overpayments?

HMRC are trying to have their cake and eat it.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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"