HMRC's plans for a quicker and simpler tax system for small businesses. By Nichola Ross Martin

Isn't it refreshing to see that HMRC consider they have "managed to successfully implement a range of initiatives over the past 18 months to help small businesses."

Four-page tax return:-
I don’t particularly find the 4-page return any easier or more difficult to do than the 10+ pages of the full return. If anything it gives me more problems. For example, it’s harder to get supplementary pages for; it may have been suitable last year for some clients but not this year so we have to do the full return in any case; I’ve submitted 5 short returns that showed a small trading loss and requested this be set against other income - HMRC failed to do this in every case.

Responsibility for paying tax credits:-
Employers only had to do this since April 2000. All they’ve really achieved is putting employers in the same position as they were 6 years ago.

Form 42:-
As above but 2 years ago!

Better tax code information:-
So a million employees had wrong tax codes!? Surely they didn’t all work for small businesses. In any case, I can’t quite see how this would “help small businesses”.

"Stretching the changes over more than just the next four years":-
I guess if this is what they've achieved in the last 18 months, we aren't going to see much in 4 years. In fact, I'm not hopeful of seeing too many changes in the 20 years or so before I retire!!

Does anyone still believe the claptrap Mr. Brown and cronies keep coming up with. Do they think we are that gullible.
So for simpler tax system read more squeezing of small business until there is nothing left.
Beware the ides of march Mr Brown!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The klink to the report took me to the following page!

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I have not heard of a single small practitoner being consulted by HMRC about the problems of small business.

We are the only ones who understand the situation (because we are small businesses who help other small businesses) but we are not being consulted.

Instead they consulted KPMG who are a fine organisation but about as relevant to finding a solution as are my grandmother's petunias.

The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.

I will believe it when I see it in writing and set in stone. At the moment there is so much hype about this that HMRC will do this and will do that to help the small business. To date HMRC has absoutely nothing to small business. It fact hindered instead of helping growth in the SME with more and more red tapes and threats of investigations etc... Perhaps should start looking somwhere nearer to their doors that others for deceit and underdeclaration.

If HMRC are so keen to make returns easier, the simpliest of all actions would be to allow late returns to be done online, instead of having to be sent to clients to post by Royal Mail !!

In my line of business, I often have people who see my adverts and realise that they should have been doing a return for the last few years. It becomes far more laborious when the Royal Mail get involved.

Like most of your readers, I like to maximise my online working and HMRC do appear to work quicker where online submission is involved.

I believe that public sector spending percentage of GDP has risen to an egregious number under Beetlebrow of Bulgaria but what's the % of private sector GDP spent dealing with this sort of rubbish ?

The short return cannot be filed online by agents using third party software. As far as I know it can't be filed online at all. It has to be handwritten and scanned by HMRC using special OCR software. If I get one of these I bin it and submit a full SA return online for my clients just like HMRC want me to.