Liar Liar!

My thanks to a loyal reader who has advised me that this weekend many hundreds of child benefit customers have received letters from HMRC re child benefit.

Apparently these letters give client details. However, on page 2 of each letter the details provided are those of someone other than the intended addressee.

The information disclosed includes such matters as bank details and amounts being paid.

This is of course a breach of the Data Protection Act.

I am further advised that HMRC call centre advisers have been told that if "customers" ring in to complain about these letters, then the "customer" should be lied to and told that their letter was an accident and that no other have complained about such a mistake.

Seemingly, as at the end of last Saturday, HMRC have recorded quite a number of calls complaining about this data breach.

One final point, the Civil Service Code dictates that employees must be honest at all times. Unsurprisingly many advisers are not happy about being told to lie.

Updates on this story would be most welcome.

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"

I Don't Believe It!

Is this true?

"Well, as a member of HMRCs floundering Field Farce ( sorry, Field Force ) I was astonished to be told that, due to cut-backs in budgets, myself and twenty of my colleagues were forbidden from making calls for an astonishing 6 weeks recently. We had absolutely NOTHING to do instead. So we did nothing for 6 weeks. Managers aware of this, staff furious. You couldn't make it up......."

Even I am gobsmacked at this!

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"

Deadline

I hope everyone managed to finish inputting their online tax declarations before the end of yesterday (deadline for submissions)?

Submissions after that date will attract an automatic £100 fine, and late payments will be subject to interest charges.

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"

HMRC's Coding Enigma II

The confusion over HMRC's erroneous tax codes being sent out this year continues to rumble on.

Yesterday an HMRC spokesman said:

"It's a hangover from the old system.

Before we had five or six systems sending out tax codes, but because of last year's upgrade we now have one. The new system is basically picking up duplicates from the old one and flushing them out.

The new system is working as it should, and we're confident that it will not happen again in future."

Today, on their own website, HMRC (having been stung into action by the media) now say:

"The transition to the new system has, however brought to light discrepancies in our existing records and this is resulting in a number of incorrect notices being issued.

The vast majority of notices will be correct but there will be cases where, because the data carried over from our old systems does not match employers' data, some people receive an incorrect coding notice or more than one coding notice for the same employment because of these discrepancies.

This is a transitional issue caused by data mismatches, rather than an IT issue and will be resolved once we have cleared these from the system."

So it's not "duplicates", but "discrepancies in existing records". It most certainly isn't an "IT issue"!

I am having trouble understanding this, if there were discrepancies in existing records wouldn't that mean that HMRC would have sent out incorrect coding notices in previous years then?

I wonder what the reason will be next week?

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"

HMRC's Hangover

HMRC have explained away the cause of the new PAYE IT system issuing wrong codes, it's a hangover!

An HMRC spokesperson is quoted by ZDNet UK:

"It's a hangover from the old system.

Before we had five or six systems sending out tax codes, but because of last year's upgrade we now have one. The new system is basically picking up duplicates from the old one and flushing them out.

The new system is working as it should, and we're confident that it will not happen again in future."

Seemingly the issue mainly affects those who have changed jobs in the last two years.

So that's alright then!

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"

HMRC Dies Another Day

Another day, another HMRC IT cock up.

Hot on the heels to the avalanche of incorrect coding notices being sent out by HMRC, comes news in the Yorkshire Post of another IT related blunder by HMRC.

Seemingly 186,115 injured armed forces veterans and war widows have received letters from HMRC telling them that they will be taxed at 20% on their war pensions (war pensions actually have a not taxed (NT) status).

The letters were sent in error, as a result of "computer error" (isn't it funny how computers are always blamed, yet it is a human that designs and programmes them?).

Will HMRC be correcting this error?

Yes...but only after the ex servicemen and their widows contact HMRC first (ie HMRC will not correct the error automatically).

All very well, if the veterans are fully fit and have nothing better to do with their lives!

However, there are those who are very unwell (mentally and physically), who will stand for them against HMRC?

Anyone receiving a war pension, who is concerned, can call the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency SPVA helpline on 0800 169 2277.

Given the fact that HMRC is snowed under with queries/complaints etc, and apparently grinding to a halt, how long will this take to rectify?

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"