HMRC Chooses RBS

A snippet from the City Diary of yesterday's Times:

"HM Revenue & Customs has had to go looking for another bank. This follows the decision in 2004 by the Bank of England to withdraw from the provision of retail banking and clearing services to government departments and corporate customers in order to concentrate its core responsibilities, HMRC tells me.

(Does anyone know whether this decision led to a more diligent and careful stewardship of the UK economy from Threadneedle Street? Someone remind me.)

So Revenue & Customs had to go through a public procurement process to find the right bank.

The result?

Citigroup and, er, Royal Bank of Scotland.

RBS seems to have been a long way into its present troubles when it was selected for the HMRC job.

Still, life goes on."

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"

At The Coal Face

This article, in the March 2009 edition of Oracle, describes a day in the life of an HMRC Contact Centre operative:

Contact Centre

Truly a miserable working environment!

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"

Amnesty II

Advice to HMRC: amnesties only work if you publicise them.

In the view of many tax professionals the last amnesty for offshore account holders was not advertised nearly enough.

This time round, with a new amnesty being proposed for offshore account holders, the professionals want a pro active advertising campaign rather than just a posting on the HMRC website.

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"

System Problems

I am advised by a tax professional that "due to system problems", attempts to reduce the payments on account of his clients using HMRC's online system (which is used to replace the need to complete a SA303 - Claim to reduce payments on account), have not worked.

The result being that some of his clients have received Self Assessment: Final Demands, and apparently they may receive surcharge notices as well.

To insult to injury, when he phoned his local HMRC office to ask for help they advised him that they couldn't because their internal system had gone down.

The added irony of this story is that it took his clients to advise him of the problem, instead of HMRC.

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"

Der Flohzirkus

Gott in himmel!

Oh dear it seems there has been a bit of a cock up with some CD's sent out to employers by HMRC. The Register reports that the February edition of HMRC's "Employer Bulletin" should have contained a CD of software designed to help small firms deal with their tax obligations.

Instead, owing to a foul at the outsourced CD distributor, several hundred CD's (out of a mailshot of 1.5 million) were sent out containing 16 CD audio files of German fairy tales read in German.

The titles ranged from Zwei Ordentliche Kinder (Two Tidy Children), Der Flohzirkus (The Flea Circus) and Gespenster (Ghosts).

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"

Shame

This particular comment posted on LabourSpace comes from someone who claims to be an advisor who works for an HMRC contact centre handling tax credit issues, he/she speaks of his/her shame and the fact that the whole system is disgusting.

He/she offers some useful advice to those who need to interact with the contact centres; take the name of the person you are talking to, and do not believe them if they say they can't escalate the problem.

Source LabourSpace:

"I have been an [Tax Credit] advisor for nearly 3 years now. I am the longest serving member of my contact centre by far, the staff turn over is incredible.

I can confidantly say that on most of the calls I get, I notice an error made by a previous advisor. This frustrates me hugely. The errors made for (e.g.) income being changed to nil are basic errors but they are made by inexperienced advisors on an industrial scale.

The contact centres are a shambles.

I count myself as a very good advisor. I have made my mistakes with peoples claims in the past simply through human error but when the person whos claim I have affected calls up and puts in a complaint, I can ensure you these are taken VERY seriously and advisors are severely reprimanded if a complaint is made about them.

Basically what I am trying to say is that a lot of silly errors aren't picked up because people are not complaining about specific advisors. Take their name on EVERY CALL, take their team number and location. I feel like I am betraying my fellow advisors BUT for every good avisor like myself there are 300 brand new ones who literally, through no real fault of their own, get thrown on the phone and given the power to ruin a persons claim, however unintentionally.

Also bear in mind we as advisors have NO power when it comes to escalating issues or chasing up anything done by our head office (TCO). The only option I can suggest if you really aren't getting anywhere is to ask to speak to a manager BUT unfortunately you'd be better speaking to a child, as the managers haven't got a clue and activly avoid taking any escalations.

If an advisor says they can't pass you to a team leader straight away as there are none available do not accept this, because their manager will be sitting opposite them waving their hands in the air, as in a 'I'm not here' manner, to avoid taking a complaint call.

The whole system is disgusting.

I am ashamed to work there but feel like if I left, the few peoples claims I do manage to fix will be lost along with the rest."

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"