HMRC caught 'cooking' the VAT stats

A report in Taxation magazine accuses HMRC of providing 'seriously misleading' statistics on VAT registration delays.

Newly published minutes from the 9 July meeting of the Joint VAT Consultative Committee (JVCC) show that, prior to 1 April 2008, the revenue capped the reported length of the wait for each registration at 60 days when calculating the average.

HMRC's Kate Jarvis is documented in the minutes to have given these details by way of explanation for why the average tim