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Momentum grows for independent review of HMRC

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10th Jun 2015
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Senior accountants, tax lawyers and academics have asked for an independent review into HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to improve its performance.

The suggestion by Paul Aplin, who is chairman of the tax faculty committee at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, has been backed by people including Bill Dodwell, head of tax policy at Deloitte, tax campaigner Richard Murphy, Oxford university tax law professor Judith Freeman and Jolyon Maugham, a QC specialising in tax.

Writing in Economia, Aplin said that 10 years after the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise merged to create HMRC, a combination of heavy job cuts, a decline in public trust of HMRC and an increase in tax legislation and its powers meant it’s time for a thorough review.

Aplin told AccountingWEB that he was encouraged by the positive reaction to his article.

He said that any review of HMRC should consider its powers and whether there should be independent oversight of the government department to make it more accountable. “There are challenges from the PAC [Public Accounts Committee] and NAO [National Audit Office] but all are focused on a particular review and area at a particular time.

“I’d like to see a really independent challenge as to whether HMRC has enough resource to do the job it has to do. Is it right that HMRC has to constantly re-deploy staff from one area to another to keep it rolling?”

In its annual report for 2013-2014, HMRC’s chief executive Lin Homer, said it had made “significant achievements”, including collecting £505.8bn of tax (£30.2bn more than the previous year) and introducing new technology such as “real-time” payroll information. The 2014-15 report and accounts are due in a matter of weeks

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Head of woman
By Rebecca Cave
12th Jun 2015 10:45

HM Treasury boss thinks HMRC does a fantstic job
Sir Nicholas Macpherson the Permanent Secretary responsible for the overall management of the HM Treasury has written a blog about  the first ten years of HMRC. He thinks "Revenue and Customs officials have done a fantastic job over the last decade on pretty much every metric"

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By eddie the eagle
12th Jun 2015 11:21

There are none so blind

as those who will not see

Sir Nicholas Macpherson is welcome to walk a mile in my shoes. I have a spare desk, some payrolls to deal with and I'll provide his tea and lunch. A couple of days should be sufficient to disabuse him of his view.

I suspect when Nick rings HMRC he gets through.

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By TaxMatters
12th Jun 2015 14:18

What a good idea ! ! ! ! !

and we need heavy weight tax professionals to tell us that?  My god every client that has ever walked into my office has said that. Maybe it's time the heavy weight professional got out of their ivory towers and listened to the man on the Clapham omnibus. No point in suggesting it to anybody in HMRC the only system development they do is the CYA system.

A 10 year old could find improvements!

How about a simple one - has anybody compared the forms CWF1 and SA1? why the hell do we need both? The answer is simple - they don't have anybody with commercial acumen

Thank god I'm near retirement

 

 

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Replying to Matrix:
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By petestar1969
15th Jun 2015 11:55

Hmm

TaxMatters wrote:

and we need heavy weight tax professionals to tell us that?  My god every client that has ever walked into my office has said that. Maybe it's time the heavy weight professional got out of their ivory towers and listened to the man on the Clapham omnibus. No point in suggesting it to anybody in HMRC the only system development they do is the CYA system.

A 10 year old could find improvements!

How about a simple one - has anybody compared the forms CWF1 and SA1? why the hell do we need both? The answer is simple - they don't have anybody with commercial acumen

Thank god I'm near retirement

 

 

 

 

Do you seriously fill in CWF1's and SA1's?

Ever heard of online registration? Takes about 10 minutes. 

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Replying to Cardigan:
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By TaxMatters
15th Jun 2015 17:00

What do you think?

Of course we don't fill in the CWF1/SA1 what I was pointing out is the waste the Revenue create.

 

Having said that can somebody explain to me how we are going to get the Revenue to listen to us if we take the work off their hands. We should be sending in every possible communication on paper. Drown them in paper! until they start to fulfil our needs - like agent dedicated lines and telephone numbers that are not engaged for days on end (and at 11.00 at night)

We accountants are so badly organised ad represented

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By markabacus
12th Jun 2015 15:14

Good job HMRC have no competition

It's a good job HMRC have no competition or else they would be out of business. Who in their right mind would want to deal with them if they had an option?

My latest farce is trying to get CIS tax owed on behalf of subbies deducted from the client's SA account. I managed to get part of it sorted against his 13/14 return back in Feb but that same Dept now reckons they can't help to clear the balance against his 14/15.

Told to ring another number who in turn gave me another who also in turn gave me another . So 3 phone calls 40+min call queues and achieved nothing.

So I rang and lodged a complaint, they rang back same day to say it would be sort by middle of this week [4 working days]. No prizes for guessing, I rang again yesterday as nothing had been done. They rang back to say it would be dealt with as a matter of some urgency and someone will ring me.

Shall I hold my breathe................ I don't think so, diary reminder to ring Tuesday

And Mr Macpherson reckons they do a good job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which planet does he live on. How on earth with the salary and pensions these people receive do we manage to hire such.................. I'll leave you to complete the sentence.

 

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By TaxMatters
12th Jun 2015 15:44

Just thinking about it

The more I think about it the more I would like to chair that independent review. I'd be happy with just a mediocre salary say 75% of what McP receives plus 10% of any savings I introduced. I would retire in luxury after 2 years

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By markabacus
16th Jun 2015 12:25

Review long overdue

A thorough review of HMRC is long overdue. If Mr P even thinks they are doing a good job then he clearly shouldn't be in his current post.

I've already filed one complaint on a client matter not that it has made any difference after nearly 3 weeks and follow up calls on a weekly basis as nothing has been done. Never mind my letter sent in Feb that they didn't action or reply to.

Now this week it's a client who failed to claim their £2k employer allowance but can HMRC fix it. Seemingly not after today's phone call in response to my letter. Blimey that would smack of 'working together'!!! And that would never do, would it?

 

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