You might also be interested in
Replies (6)
Please login or register to join the discussion.
HMRC need to set the example for others to follow
It has been my contention for some time, that the Inland Revenue should get it's own house in order before it starts imposing hefty fines on the taxpayer for failures to meet specific deadlines. It is the fact that these penalties (I am thinking primarily of PAYE and CIS) can become all out of proportion to the alleged "crime" or size of business. When you sit this alongside HMRC feeble and inconsistent "excuses" regarding the 2005/2006 PAYE penalty notices and now IT surcharge notices, it is just not congruent. If they want to have the power to levy such fines then they need (in my opinion) to set the standard. How can they reasonably sit before the Commissioners and argue that their "customer" should be severely fined (let's say £900) for failure to meet a deadline, when their given 'reasonable excuse' for taking 9 months to alert their customer to his or her failing, is weak to say the least.
I wrote not so long ago regarding an enquiry notice issued in January 2007 to a Tax Return submitted in June 2005, where the Inspectors letter gave the "customer" 30 days to reply, and one assumes would have been followed up by a formal notice given similar time under threat of financial penalty for failure.
To my mind these penalties, applied automatically without any thought, may drive a terminal wedge between HMRC and their "customers" and I think it is time the powers that be, gave serious thought to simply waiving the penalties in the case of the PAYE fiasco where HMRC themselves have not helped matters and where they stand to gain by "encouraging" on-line filing. One lives in hope.
Punishment Fit the Crime
Parliament ought not to have let the Revenue implement such a blanket penalty regime in the first place, and then maybe there would be less chance of that power being abused.
To fine the same £100 per month for a self employed start-up with one part time apprentice as an established business with 49 employees is simply out of proportion and hits the small man much harder than the larger concern.
When a Government Department automates such penalties, profits from them and then administers them incompetently, the uneven powers Parliament has given should be withdrawn, lest we begin to think the penalties are really there to raise money.
MANDARIN :- " I know, lets have many more deadlines and a shorter filing window ". The CIS penalties will be abused in the same way, only 12 times more often.
Hmm.
We have been receiving a fair bit of HMRC mail with apparent delays. 23 separaet letters advising details of references to be used with PAYE remittances dated 11th February have arrived in the last 10 days, and yes we have had the first surcharge notice - dated 27th March but not deliverted until 20th April.
I am not a conspiracy theory person (normally) but this ...
Working Together?
Isn't this exactly the sort of thing that WT could address? The delays between date-on-document and date delivered could be caused by the Post Office, they could be caused by delays in the metaphorical Revenue postroom with piles left lying around waiting to go, or they could have a date printed on them that does not reflect the day it's going to leave the building.
I expect it's the last of these three. The computer (or the human being even) decides on the issuing of a surcharge on 1st March and it's marked to go. But the document is not actually printed and sent until two weeks later because of delays in the printing and distribution pipeline.
But the Revenue should know the answer. We just need them to fess up to it and that's the sort of thing that WT should be dealing with instead of more dull blurbs about future plans.
No payslip
Go to www.hmrc.gov.uk/howtopay/nopayslip.htm
I know this is an ideal world scenario, but if the tax return was submitted before 30 September, then HMRC should have sent a calculation, whether they send a statement or not. If submitted after that date then the TR should have shown the tax due. HMRC's argument is that if you know how much to pay, you should pay on time - ideal world again, I'm afraid!
idea
let's start sending hmrc an invoice for £100 every time they take more than a month to deal with something sent to them?
or when we ring them up, and fail to get through, and have to ring for several days and in the end give up and write to the little creeps?
and see who squeals?
if we all did this they would be forced to sit up and focus on real co-operation with agents rather than just posturing co-operation which is just slimy...and part of hmrc attitude for the last 10 years+ .
we all know the new CIS fascist regime is another way of [***] more penalties out of us for "failing to get figures in on time" i.e. the looong period of 2 weeks after the numbers/event stop happening.
After all if we can do it for CIS we might as well get annual accounts in 2 weeks after the y/e?
must get some more unpaid work done reconciling figures to the useless data hmrc gives me on tax payments my clients have made