Jon Thompson Given Public Drubbing by PAC

Jon Thompson, chief executive of HMRC has been given a public drubbing by MPs for failing to tell 100,000 small businesses how to prepare for a 'no deal' Brexit.

Thompson was given a dressing down in a letter from parliament's Public Accounts Committee, which has been made public.

Committee chair Meg Hillier said she was "concerned and disappointed" about the lack of communication with small businesses from the department, and asked for an urgent update on how HMRC plans to make them aware of potential changes to how they trade.

She also criticised a further delay to HMRC's new customs declarations service, which is not likely to function properly until after Brexit.

The letter is quoted by City AM:

"I am both concerned and disappointed...you have made little progress.

You gave us no assurance that HMRC has a plan to ensure that businesses are aware of what they will need to do.

We are particularly concerned about the 100,000 small traders that HMRC can not engage directly with, as you do not know who they are.

I would be grateful if you could write to the Committee as soon as possible with an update on the level of business understanding and preparedness for changes to customs rules and procedures in the event of no deal."

Hillier also accused HMRC of being underprepared for changes to how businesses would pay VAT on EU imported goods after Brexit - with bills expected to be paid quicker.

Thompson told the committee his team had only just started to work with software developers to create the new system.

WHY ONLY START NOW??????

Hillier said:

"The potential move to postponed accounting is something that was foreseeable and it is reasonable to expect you to have been better prepared for it."

An HMRC spokesperson said:

“HMRC has well-developed plans to ensure that there will be a functioning customs, VAT and excise system in the unlikely event of a no deal. We have engaged with business representative bodies who will be a key partners in reaching businesses to ensure that they understand any implications for them.

We have always said the timeline for implementing the Customs Declaration Service is tight, but that we would operate the current system (CHIEF) in tandem throughout the transition. We have made good progress to ensure that the UK has a customs system capable of handling any potential volume of customs declarations after March 2019.”

BOLLOCKS!

Oh, and in other news, Thompson has deleted his Twitter account.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

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HMRC Is a "Paragon" - The Video

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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HMRC Is a "Paragon" of "Smart" Working

I am delighted to report that HMRC has been declared a "paragon".

It seems that, according to a report from the public-service-focused think tank Reform, HMRC's recent progress in embracing new technology, introducing new hubs and offering staff flexible-working opportunities offers a blueprint for other Whitehall departments, .

According to Public Technology, HMRC's implementation of “smarter working” principles has seen 25,000 of the department’s close-on 70,000 staff receive tablet computers so that they can work wherever they are, at a time of their choice.

HMRC is also at the forefront of the government Hubs Programme, and is targeting the consolidation of its operations to 13 regional hubs by 2027 – a huge scaling down from the 600 offices it had in 2005 and the 144 it operated in the last financial year.

The Reform report notes that HMRC’s new Croydon hub, which opened in September last year, offers different types of workspaces – such as shared spaces for collaboration, quiet zones for intense work, and videoconferencing so that staff can participate in meetings without being in the building.

Report co-author Daniel El-Gamry said the experience of HMRC showed that it was vital for staff needs rather than new technology to be in the driving seat.

“User-centred design is crucial because it embeds a culture of empathy with the employees’ actual needs, identifying their routine work challenges to create relevant solutions,” he said. “Therefore, rather than technological change being driven from the top, it is tailored around the needs of individual staff members.”

The report said initiatives such as HMRC’s distribution of tablets gave staff “more authority and autonomy” on how and when they worked.

HMRC permanent secretary Jon Thompson said the report showed the department was making “excellent progress” towards becoming a smart working organisation.

“We’re improving the service that we give to taxpayers and the experience for our people working in HMRC.”

Hat tip to Thompson, he actually avoided the use of the "C" word and referred to us as "taxpayers"!

The report also noted that HMRC was still 50% over the Cabinet Office’s target for space allocation per staff member – which it said was six square metres, according to the government’s The State of the Estate in 2016–17 report.

Well then, everything appears to be prefect!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Troup Cleared - Jobs For The Boys

Sir Edward Troup, former permanent secretary at HMRC, has been cleared to start a new part-time role as an external senior tax adviser at management consulting company McKinsey, although he is not permitted to give EU tax administrations Brexit-related advice.

The advisory committee on business appointments (ACOBA) has said that there are ‘some risks under the government’s business appointment rules’ with Troup’s new role at McKinsey.

One concern was that the appointment could be seen as a reward for decisions made in office, particularly as HMRC paid McKinsey £680,000 to help design a Brexit customs arrangement.

However, although Troup had some official contact with McKinsey while at HMRC, he was not involved with McKinsey regarding any paid advice that the business provided to HMRC. He also had no influence in contract letting or contract management as this was down to CEO Jon Thompson.

Therefore, the committee concluded that Troup’s new role was not a reward for decisions made while in office.

As per Accountancy Daily, the committee has allowed Troup to start the new role as long as the following conditions are met for two years from his last day in Crown service:

• he should not draw on any privileged information available to him from his time in Crown office;
• he should not advise EU tax administrations where that advice would be directly relevant to Brexit-related issues;
• he should not work on UK tax affairs;
• service he should not work directly or indirectly on the tax affairs of McKinsey or any of its clients other than overseas tax administrations;
• he should not work on any matter which involves any dealings with any part of UK government or HMRC:
• he should not provide advice to McKinsey or its partners or clients on a bid or contract relating directly to the work of HMRC; and
• he should not become personally involved in lobbying the government on behalf of McKinsey or its clients.

Troup must also inform the committee if he plans to expand or change his role as he may have to make a new application to the committee.

Troup left HMRC on 15 January 2018.

Working for HMRC can be the springboard to a glittering career! 

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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 Challenged Over Breach of Human Rights

The Loan Charge Action Group has taken up the cudgels against HMRC, on behalf of contractors who used tax avoidance schemes, and have branded looming fines “grossly unfair” and a breach of human rights in an official legal challenge. 

HMRC has targeted around 50,000 self-employed people with a “loan charge”, set to hit in April, which those liable claim will see them forced into bankruptcy.

The dispute arises from the contractors’ use of complex arrangements, popular and widely accepted to be legal in the early 2000s, in which much of their salary was paid in the form of supposedly tax-free loans.

The Loan Charge Action Group claims workers were unwittingly led into the schemes by unscrupulous promoters or employers, who required them to be paid in this way.


The contractors will also be hit by the loan charge, which rolls all the loans received into a single tax year meaning the bill could be more than the actual tax liability. It also does not clear the original unpaid tax bill.

The LCAG is requesting a judicial review of the charge saying it is a breach of the European Convention of Human Rights and that the Government did not carry out proper impact assessments.

HMRC has admitted that a small number of people may face bankruptcy.

Robert Venables QC, acting on behalf of the group, said the loan charge was “disproportionate”.

He is quoted by the Telegraph:

"The loan charges are being applied in cases where there was no tax avoidance in the first place and taxpayers are being taxed on non-existent benefits and non-existent income.

This is to all intents and purposes retrospective legislation. It is grossly unfair, arbitrary, oppressive and unjust.”

Richard Horsley, of the LCAG, said:

“Hardworking law-abiding people and their families face losing everything due to this unfair retrospective draconian tax grab.

The Loan Charge Action Group represent and have been dealing with many desperate self-employed and formerly self-employed people who never broke the law and never sought to conceal their tax arrangements.”

An HMRC spokesman said it had no comment on the legal action but that HMRC “wants to do all we can to make it simple for people to get out of these schemes and we’re here to help those who want to”.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"

Mel Stride's Dirty Hands

As loyal readers know, HMRC and the government continue to press ahead with changes to IR35 (relating to loan charges) which amount to a retrospective tax grab going back twenty years.

Mel Stride (Financial Secretary to The Treasury) is quite gung-ho in his support for the retrospective tax grab.

Given Stride's support for this measure, indeed he has opined that tax avoidance is wrong (note it is not illegal), I would have thought that he would be squeaky clean himself.

"if some time ago, you entered into one of these disguised remuneration schemes, where you're basically avoiding tax, there is no reason why we shouldn't collect that money."

However, he isn't squeaky clean at all!

So @MelJStride you are Financial Secretary to the Treasury? You deal with Tax (and more importantly avoidance). Your company has links to Amazon which paid £4.5M in corporation tax on £1.5B (yes.....billion) on record profits on its most recent quarter🤔 we’re coming pal👊👊

— BlueDazza (@blue_dazza) September 30, 2018

My advice to politicians is as follows, if you intend to start lecturing us on the morality or otherwise of tax matters you need to have clean hands and be seen to have clean hands yourselves!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance 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 Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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"