HMRC Accounts Qualified Ten Years Running

Those of us who are a tad "irked" by the EU's profligacy, incompetence and interference in the UK's affairs often cite that fact that the EU's accounts are regularly "qualified" by their auditors as a significant indicator of the EU's failings.

Well, as the old saying goes, people in glass houses etc.

Who are we in the UK to talk about "qualified accounts" being an indicator of incompetence, when our own government departments have had their accounts qualified by the National Audit Office (NAO)?

The qualifications by the National Audit Office (NAO) are for a mixture of overspending, underspending or failing properly to account for expenditure.

Needless to say HMRC figure in the list of shame of Whitehall departments that have been qualified. In fact, as Exaro News points out, HMRC has seen its accounts qualified for the 10th year running, between £2.25 billion and £2.75 billion for 2011-12, around the same level as 2010-11.

Well done lads!

Amongst the highlights:

- HMRC is estimated to have lost between £2.08BN and £2.46BN of tax credits through fraud and error. This is between 7.5% and 8.8% of the £28BN total payments made, breaching HMRC’s target of 5%.

- HMRC underpaid to claimants between £170M to £290M.

- HMRC met its target to reduce tax credit debts to £4BN only after writing off £1.7BN in 2011-12.


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 £16M Snafu

To gently ease everyone into another week, here is a gemusing tale of what happens when a date is entered on the wrong part of a letter.

Step forward HMRC which, owing to a "snafu" confusing a date with a sum of money, sent Enid Fisher (a semi retired pensioner of 73) a tax bill for £16,022,012. Aside from the sum being a "tad" OTT, the error is even more ironic given that Mrs Fisher was in dispute with HMRC over an HMRC error that gave rise to them issuing her a rebate.

Anyhoo, all's well that ends well; Mrs Fisher has now received £200 compensation for the distress caused etc.

HMRC are quoited by the Mail:

"We are unable to discuss the details of individual taxpayers due to restrictions on confidentiality, however we have apologised to Ms Fisher for any distress caused and understand the matter has been now resolved."

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"

The Scales of Justice

Last Friday I mused on the "topsy turvy" nature of the world wrt "justice" not always being applied equally.

My thanks to Stuart Jones, a loyal reader, who picked up the ball and ran with it to produce an article that compared and contrasted the treatment of the plumber (who I wrote about last Friday) and Michael Shanly (a person who seems to be a tad wealthier and a tad more dishonest than the plumber):

"When sentencing property millionaire Michael Shanly (who features on the Sunday Times Rich List) to pay fines and compensation totalling £830,000,plus costs, for evading £430,000 of Inheritance Tax I was delighted to hear Recorder Rosamund Horwood-Smart QC say:

In this court there are no rules just for the rich and no rules just for the poor… the tax system relies on voluntary and honest disclosure of tax affairs and it applies to all equally.

Shanly, whose fortune is estimated at £132m,  had previously failed to disclose the Swiss offshore account to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) during a civil enquiry where he was found to owe HMRC around £2 million.

Contrast this with Melvyn Careswell, a self employed plumber, who evaded around £50,000 of Income Tax.

Despite pleading guilty to the offence he was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment and had his photo published on the HMRC website at the bottom of the press release, something which my friend and fellow chartered accountant discusses on his website, HMRC is Shite.

Well thank goodness the poor are treated the same as the rich."

As I noted last Friday, it's a Funny old world!


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"

Tax Petardance

My thanks to a Loyal Reader who has alerted me to a very gemusing article in Taxation, that defines a phrase that clearly should trend on Twitter:

- "Tax petardance"

"Tax ‘petardance’: avoidance that hoists HMRC by their own petard, typically by taking advantage of an anti-avoidance provision in reverse.

Any sense of moral turpitude is cancelled out by feeling that HMRC have got their just desserts for introducing a stupid provision in the first place!"

Splendid!

Let's get it trending!

#taxpetardance

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"

Bye Bye Jack

My thanks to a loyal reader who has reminded me that yesterday was Dave "Jack" Hartnett's last day in orifice.

Farewell Jack, see you soon when you come back as a consultant!

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 Webinar - Capital Allowances For The Self-Employed

Just to give you a heads up, HMRC will be hosting a live webinar this afternoon between 15:00-16:00 BST on capital allowances for the self-employed:

"If you would like to attend this webinar, we will show you the different types of Capital Allowances available and some practical examples.  Capital Allowances are tax allowances that can be claimed when you buy items of equipment and are self-employed.

You will also have the opportunity to ask the presenter questions ."

Those of you who wish to attend (albeit in cyberspace) are invited by HMRC to register here Capital Allowances For The Self-Employed.

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"