MPs Recommend Anti Terror Legislation

Members of the Commons Public Accounts Committee have, according to Accountancy Age, recommended that HMRC beef up its investigations into the "cash in hand" economy by using anti terror legislation.

Quote:

"The Department should consider whether to seek alternative powers to strengthen this work."

I cannot say that I agree with the committee:

1 The anti terror legislation was brought in to deal with terrorists, not moonlighting taxi drivers et al. RIPA is already massively misused by local authorities.

2 A better solution would be to simplify the tax system; cut direct taxes, introduce a single band of tax, increase personal allowances and increase VAT. That will draw in the undeclared tax from the "cash in hand" economy, and cut the cost of administering our already over complex tax system.

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"

Changing The Rules of The Game

You know that the government is strapped for cash when the rules of the game are charged wrt tax reclaims.

New rules introduced by HMRC, effective from April 2009, will mean that even if a business wins a claim in a VAT Tribunal for overcharging it may not be able to reclaim its legal and accountancy costs from HMRC, unless it can prove that HMRC has acted unreasonably.

Proving that HMRC acted "unreasonably" will be tough.

This effectively means that small firms will not bother to try to reclaim overpayments, unless they are excessive.

Is this fair that small firms are being disadvantaged in this manner?

No.

However, small firms are easy targets; especially when a government is broke.

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"

Recession Bites

Clearly we are heading for a deep recession, whereby incomes will be slashed and by definition tax take reduced, as HMRC are (according to the Public and Commercial Services union) shedding 3,400 jobs over the next two years.

However, The Telegraph notes that HMRC have accused the PCS of "scare-mongering".

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"

Online Submission Problems

Can anyone help Sandra with her query posed on AccountingWeb?

Is anyone else having this problem?

I submitted a tax return on hmrc's website, using their online software. I keeping getting this message>>>>>>

'ERROR: We cannot verify that your return was successfully submitted to HM Revenue & Customs. Please click 'Next' so that we can do this now and verify your return was submitted'

On clicking next I get this message>>>>>

System busy
We are not able to confirm that your return has been successfully received

I've spoken to HMRC helpline about this several times and each time, they tell me their IT department is dealing with it and they cannot tell me how long it would take to resolve.

I'm a bit concerned as i submitted this return about 3 weeks ago and it seems a long time to wait for this to be resolved.

Has anyone on this board encountered this type of problem and what did they do to resolve it?

Many thanks

Sandra

I wonder if HMRC have considered "turning it off and turning it on again"?

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"

LOL!

SIR - Following the result of using the Royal Mail recorded delivery service, I have a cunning plan to save people money during the credit crunch.

I sent a very important cheque for my tax return to the tax man by Royal Mail recorded delivery.

I went online each day to check the progress of the letter.

After six days the letter had not 'arrived', but my bank statement showed the cheque had been cashed!

I continued to check the progress of the letter, but after 21 days, according to the Royal Mail computer, it still had not been delivered.

I phoned the Royal Mail and was told that large numbers of letters to places like the tax return office were checked only with a list of the recorded letters, so that it only requires one signature for the lot.

My letter was still reported as undelivered, so I sent a letter of complaint and received an apology and a book of six first class stamps.

So here is my cunning plan:

Buy 50 cheap envelopes and send them (empty) to HMRC Accounts Office BD9 88AA by second class recorded delivery. This will cost about £50, including the envelopes.

Wait 21 days and fill in a complaint form at your local post office for each non-recorded delivery (they won't be recorded).

You will receive 50 apologies and 50 books of six first class stamps, valued at £108.

That's a profit of around £58.

What can possibly go wrong?

Cheers.

Bruce Piggott (electronic engineer retired), WGC.

Source Welwyn and Hatfield Times 24.

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 Hammer To Crack a Nut

Brian Collins, chief scientific advisor at the Department for Transport and the Department for Business, spoke at a conference recently about last year's Datagate scandal when HMRC lost the personal details of 25 million people.

He said that the loss should have been prevented, and that the system should have flagged up a warning not to transfer such large amounts of personal data onto unencrypted discs.

"The system design should never have allowed the [data loss].

They should be designed to stop people going off the edges of what is acceptable. Why are we not doing this?

Because it costs."

Maybe so, most certainly about cost cutting leading problems wrt security and service levels. However, he ignores the fundamental issue wrt Datagate namely that the data was sent by courier on an unencrypted disc.

No expensive system add on was needed to "flag up" that using couriers and unencrypted discs to transfer sensitive data was just daft. Decent procedures and training should have covered that point.

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"