Readers may be aware of Richard Murphy a blogger and self-styled economist and tax expert. He has a plan to save us from our current economic woes. I'll save readers the full details but one part of the plan (targeted help for fuel bills) does require an awful lot of administration (requiring as it does millions of households to supply full details of their household incomes and expenditure) and he accepts that an 'army' of workers will be needed to do this administration. Where will this army come from? Mr Murphy has the answer to that too:
“And the army of people needed to operate it could come from UK accountancy practices. Just push back the tax return submission deadlines (but not tax payment dates) by three months and all the required personnel could be found this autumn”.
Would accountingweb professionals relish the chance to work for 3 months for the government, and release their employees to do the same? Can anyone think of any flaws in this plan?
Mr Murphy has been asked on his blog who would be paying for this, whether he'd resort to conscription if the accountancy profession politely declined to join in and if he really thinks there's so much slack in the work being done in accountancy firms that they could do this. He hasn't answered the first two questions but dealt with the last with the cryptic comment "I know very well how tax staff in firms work".
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He's a funny fellow.
I sometimes wonder if he really believes all this stuff or if it's really an elaborate joke. But then I sometimes read the Guardian and .......
Come, come Mr Murphy ... get with HMRC's mantra.
*You* may think that all we do is complete tax returns - but HMRC think we're all dying to give that up in return for becoming bookkeepers (for MTD).
And I guess there's no need for advisory services, because taxpayers only need to read Richard's 'articles'.
Sounds as plausible as MTDfIT
Once in a while Murphy makes a good point. But infinitive monkeys and typewriters and all of that.....
Wonder how much it will cost to do MLR checks on all these new clients for this one off job of verifying an individual's income- it will not be cheap as possibly no later years to absorb the set up costs?
Or is the client to be HMG itself, in which case I am sure certain larger firms will be happy to have their snouts in the trough for the right sort of money.
One could always graduate payments by paying the same towards each household bill with this contribution being taxable (if a couple how split?) with a sliding scale tax rate from nil to 95%, of course this would place a lot more individuals into the tax return regime.
And of course one gets to the question, is taxable income really a decent measure re who needs support from the state and who does not?
I wouldn't worry ... it would take the powers that be over a year simply to define exactly what is meant by "full details of their household incomes and expenditure."
Next comes the (un)reliability of self-reported data - especially in such a volume as to make policing it impossible - even before people have worked out how to tweak it.
Why not let people self declare their income and expenditure for his scheme? After all the government allowed them to do that with much larger amounts at stake for SEISS, furlough and Bounceback Loan. What could possibly go wrong?
I do like reading his threads on Twitter though. I feel I need to learn more economics and maybe think in different ways about stuff.
I've been 'brought up' on small state / market will decide kind of thinking - which doesn't really sort out much right now.
The market will make a profit, and ignore external costs unless heavily regulated. it will try to monopolise where it can and maximise its profits at the expense of all else. See the software market for accountants, and the utilities for example.
In particular it will 'influence' politicians (either via cash sums, ie 'donations' (they are not bribes of course) or simply appointing their man to key roles - see George Osbourne and Rishi, and most of the house of Lords) to ensure regulation is as light as possible and in their favour.
We seem to now accept all this behaviour as perfectly normal for an advanced economy, to the extent politicians have to keep a register of who has bribed* them, and the bribes* are all listed in terms of access to ministers at what cost, and how much a Knighthood costs. There was even a system for "mates" to tender for contracts with no oversight under the cover of Covid as a National Emergency. Proper tin pot nation that we are.
*Sorry, I meant donations, not bribes. Its only a bribe outside of the UK when talking about other corrupt regimes.
Get students to do it. And then suggest that the accountancy profession helps the government try and claw back covid support and other fraud that is so rampant.