Privatise HMRC?

Things could hardly be worse than they are now, but this may be a step too far.  Working out how to pay a private organisation would be tricky - there must be absolutely no relation between tax take and pay otherwise corruption would be difficult to avoid.

Private companies like EDS and Metronet and the entire banking sector have ended up costing the tax payer millions of pounds, whist their executives were paid a king's ransom ..

whilst service levels may improve in the short term... the tax payer may end up loosing in the longer term ....

Privatise them, let them go bankrupt, and we could all live tax free :)

The problem with HMRC is one of attitude. In my view those running it shouldnt be allowed to run a whelk stall let alone a government department.

I don't think privatising it is the way to go.  This will only cause other problems.  What does need tohappen is that someone needs to realise that tax will not run itself.  It MUST have a properly managed, properly staffed office who know what they are talking about.  Call centres are a disaster - it is probably only a matter of time before these get shipped out to India or suchlike and then it will be even worse.  I am currenlty "on hold" to accounts office shipley - have got to 10 minutes so far. This is not acceptable.  Calling taxpayers "customers" does not make us feel warm and fuzzy.  What we need is properly qualified and motivated staff to deal with the issues.

I remember much better days just 10 - 15 years ago when you would ring a local office, speak to the same person in relation to a case each time and get a reasonably swift response to queries.  This was an improvement on earlier days when youcould only ring them between 10.00 and 3.00 or was it 4.00, but we didn't realise at the time that this is as good as it would ever get...

Now up to 13.5 mins on hold....

I'm getting all misty eyed remembering my time in an HMC&E LVO.

The folder store, registration, dereg, enforcement, enquiries - all with local knowledge and years of experience.

Where did it all go wrong?

Where did it all go wrong?

Posted by Peter Bonetti on Fri, 19/03/2010 - 15:25

They stopped local services so that we couldnt go down and drag some numbskull over the desk and clip them round the ear (metaphorically speaking).

Its the same mentality as every other bsiness nowdays - hide behind a call centre staffed with mental degenerates, preferably sited in some third world country.  That's how they operate without a thought for the additional expense and abysmal service they cause for their "customers"  (I think they mean victims).  

The easy way to improve HMRC is to make the tax system simpler........of course the need for tax advisors would drop dramatically.  Wouldn't affect me drastically however there are a lot of people making good money on advising clients.

Think Mrs Thatcher tried that with the poll tax..........

Go back to a locally based office system - or get an organisation like First Direct to show how you can combine proper levels of service with doing everything over the phone & internet.

HMRC certainly does need a swift kick.

I worked in an LP district 15-20 years ago, and I think we gave a decent service back then. Sure there were a few numpties, but they're even in practice. We worked a 28 day turnaround for post on a traffic light system, and I'd say at least half the staff worked about 10 days in arrears. Now 3 months if you're lucky, and back then we had to raise all those assessments, Sch E, sch D, taxed income by November, CGT by December.

What's gone wrong? Senior management's insistence on breaking up the job, Team Working - i.e taking away individual responsibility for a job went first, now we have the rediculous situation where deductions and allowances in a code are entered by different people. Call centres and agent lines are useless because they either don't have a clue why sonething was done and they can't put it right either. Who in their right mind thinks this is progress, other than perhaps the consultants paid huge sums to think up these ideas.