Alison Rose was less than open and transparent concerning her involvement/behaviour over Nigel Farage bank account and the BBC. However her punishment was not to be sacked, but to resign and work out her notice period at £2.4M.
That's an awful lot of 'sandwiches'!!
Different set of rules for ethics and honesty when it comes to directors?!
No the ICAEW just look at single person practices for AML. We all know that most money laundering is not by Oligarchs, but by local window cleaners and other small traders with an annual turnover of less than £30k!!
Ah Barclays Bank, the customer service helpline that tells you that they are all too busy to answer your call, and that the current wait time is in excess of 3 hours. I finally left them in May due to not been able to satisfy their KYC update, because they wouldn't tell me what extra information I needed to provide them with. I could only do this by telephone apparently!!
I moved to a digital bank (Virgin and Recognise) and they both answer their customer service helpline in less than 3 rings. I nearly fell out of my chair the first time that happened.
I have had several clients owing hundreds of thousands £ of tax for years, and one poor aspiring musician who started her musical career the year before Covid. The latter had a really good first year of trading, she dutifully saved all her tax for her tax liability and then Covid struck. She hadn't been trading long enough for any Covid support grants, and with 3 young children and only Universal Credit to fall back on, she had to spend her saved tax money on rent and food since she had no other way of earning money (all concert venues closed down for nearly 2 years).
Question: Which tax payer(s) are HMRC relentlessly pursing?!
Answer: Of course the penniless musician.
Why waste resources chasing after clients who owe £100ks of tax, with several properties in their private names, and no corporate/trust/offshore to hide behind? Until someone at HMRC/Debt Recovery Team actually engages a neuron or two, then this problem will persist.
One client even died owing HMRC £100ks tax as far back as 2012. Someone rang from HMRC recently not chasing the debt but on another matter with this clien, and literally shrugged their shoulders when I pointed out that they were an 'Ex Client' akin to a certain Nordic Blue psittacine. Case closed, it only took them 11 years to follow up on a separate matter, the fact that £thousands of tax had been lost in the interim due to their utter incompetence didn't even merit a response.
Here's a radical idea HMRC. Look at which tax payers owe you the most tax and put them at the top of your list and work your way down the list, not start at the bottom with no tax liability owing and work your way upwards! This ties in neatly with Rebecca's previous article about HMRC chasing/enforcing late filling penalties for 40% of the population who have no tax liability whatsoever.
Some clients have their state pension pre-populated on their HMRC tax return, others don't. I have yet to figure out why.
However in 2021/22 one of my clients started receiving their state pension, so I rang HMRC to find out how much state pension had been paid in the tax year. They very helpfully looked it up and provided me with the figure, duly entered on said tax return, return filed, job done or so I thought.
Last week I received an enquiry letter so I rang the Numpties aka HMRC to ask specifically what they were enquiring into. Answer - the state pension entered in Box 8 of the return TR Page 3. 'Oh that's the figure HMRC gave me' I replied. 'No it wasn't' replied Paul!! Well please could you tell me what the correct figure? Answer £179.60. 'Gosh that is considerably different from the first answer I received from HMRC' I proffered. Please could you tell me where you have got that figure from?
Answer - 'That is the weekly amount client receives for his pension'!!
I appraised Paul of the legend in bold above Box 8 'not the weekly or 4-weekly amount' to which he rather surprisingly told me he was tax trained (he didn't say by whom, and I didn't dare ask) and that was the correct figure I needed to enter on the tax return.
In the ensuring 'conversation' I requested to speak to a) his manager, b) someone who was actually tax trained or c) someone with an ounce of common sense. Surprisingly after 10 minutes on hold Paul returned and I was told that no-one was available to take over the call.
So I tried a new tack. How had he come up with that figure of £179.60? Answer - from a PAYE coding notice. Since no PAYE coding notice for the client is available on his online account that threw me a bit, but then I asked what date my client had started receiving the pension from. 2nd March 2022 was the answer (actual correct answer was in Sept 2021). Well if it was that date, and the pension is paid every 4 weeks, he must have at least received £718.40 before 05/04/2022 I countered. Paul hesitated and then insisted it was still the weekly figure of £179.60.
When pressed, he finally conceded that the figure might now be £718.40.
So currently my client has an open enquiry into the state pension he might or might not have received in 2021/22 and so far, we have 3 different figures all supplied by HMRC. According to my last contact with Paul, I have to reduce the figure to record the weekly amount. This obviously will produce a tax refund, and apparently close down the enquiry. So we apparently have to enter the wrong figure, under-state taxable income received in 2021/22 just to allow HMRC to close their enquiry.
More than happy to provide HMRC with the required information as long as they can tell me :-
a) The number of HMRC employees manning the the ADL/ working in the correspondence team
b) How many hours each employee worked per day
c) How successful in terms of dealing with the agent query were they
d) How long it took on average to answer the call
e) How much was each employee paid to successfully deal with a query, and finally
f) All data to be updated weekly
Shouldn't cost them more than £24/week as this will all be digitialised.
My answers
Alison Rose was less than open and transparent concerning her involvement/behaviour over Nigel Farage bank account and the BBC. However her punishment was not to be sacked, but to resign and work out her notice period at £2.4M.
That's an awful lot of 'sandwiches'!!
Different set of rules for ethics and honesty when it comes to directors?!
No the ICAEW just look at single person practices for AML. We all know that most money laundering is not by Oligarchs, but by local window cleaners and other small traders with an annual turnover of less than £30k!!
Power to the Institute.
Ah Barclays Bank, the customer service helpline that tells you that they are all too busy to answer your call, and that the current wait time is in excess of 3 hours. I finally left them in May due to not been able to satisfy their KYC update, because they wouldn't tell me what extra information I needed to provide them with. I could only do this by telephone apparently!!
I moved to a digital bank (Virgin and Recognise) and they both answer their customer service helpline in less than 3 rings. I nearly fell out of my chair the first time that happened.
Perrin v HMRC, I must have missed that episode. Was poor old Reggie still on his way down or finally rising to the top?
I have had several clients owing hundreds of thousands £ of tax for years, and one poor aspiring musician who started her musical career the year before Covid. The latter had a really good first year of trading, she dutifully saved all her tax for her tax liability and then Covid struck. She hadn't been trading long enough for any Covid support grants, and with 3 young children and only Universal Credit to fall back on, she had to spend her saved tax money on rent and food since she had no other way of earning money (all concert venues closed down for nearly 2 years).
Question: Which tax payer(s) are HMRC relentlessly pursing?!
Answer: Of course the penniless musician.
Why waste resources chasing after clients who owe £100ks of tax, with several properties in their private names, and no corporate/trust/offshore to hide behind? Until someone at HMRC/Debt Recovery Team actually engages a neuron or two, then this problem will persist.
One client even died owing HMRC £100ks tax as far back as 2012. Someone rang from HMRC recently not chasing the debt but on another matter with this clien, and literally shrugged their shoulders when I pointed out that they were an 'Ex Client' akin to a certain Nordic Blue psittacine. Case closed, it only took them 11 years to follow up on a separate matter, the fact that £thousands of tax had been lost in the interim due to their utter incompetence didn't even merit a response.
Here's a radical idea HMRC. Look at which tax payers owe you the most tax and put them at the top of your list and work your way down the list, not start at the bottom with no tax liability owing and work your way upwards! This ties in neatly with Rebecca's previous article about HMRC chasing/enforcing late filling penalties for 40% of the population who have no tax liability whatsoever.
Some clients have their state pension pre-populated on their HMRC tax return, others don't. I have yet to figure out why.
However in 2021/22 one of my clients started receiving their state pension, so I rang HMRC to find out how much state pension had been paid in the tax year. They very helpfully looked it up and provided me with the figure, duly entered on said tax return, return filed, job done or so I thought.
Last week I received an enquiry letter so I rang the Numpties aka HMRC to ask specifically what they were enquiring into. Answer - the state pension entered in Box 8 of the return TR Page 3. 'Oh that's the figure HMRC gave me' I replied. 'No it wasn't' replied Paul!! Well please could you tell me what the correct figure? Answer £179.60. 'Gosh that is considerably different from the first answer I received from HMRC' I proffered. Please could you tell me where you have got that figure from?
Answer - 'That is the weekly amount client receives for his pension'!!
I appraised Paul of the legend in bold above Box 8 'not the weekly or 4-weekly amount' to which he rather surprisingly told me he was tax trained (he didn't say by whom, and I didn't dare ask) and that was the correct figure I needed to enter on the tax return.
In the ensuring 'conversation' I requested to speak to a) his manager, b) someone who was actually tax trained or c) someone with an ounce of common sense. Surprisingly after 10 minutes on hold Paul returned and I was told that no-one was available to take over the call.
So I tried a new tack. How had he come up with that figure of £179.60? Answer - from a PAYE coding notice. Since no PAYE coding notice for the client is available on his online account that threw me a bit, but then I asked what date my client had started receiving the pension from. 2nd March 2022 was the answer (actual correct answer was in Sept 2021). Well if it was that date, and the pension is paid every 4 weeks, he must have at least received £718.40 before 05/04/2022 I countered. Paul hesitated and then insisted it was still the weekly figure of £179.60.
When pressed, he finally conceded that the figure might now be £718.40.
So currently my client has an open enquiry into the state pension he might or might not have received in 2021/22 and so far, we have 3 different figures all supplied by HMRC. According to my last contact with Paul, I have to reduce the figure to record the weekly amount. This obviously will produce a tax refund, and apparently close down the enquiry. So we apparently have to enter the wrong figure, under-state taxable income received in 2021/22 just to allow HMRC to close their enquiry.
Any suggestions?!
More than happy to provide HMRC with the required information as long as they can tell me :-
a) The number of HMRC employees manning the the ADL/ working in the correspondence team
b) How many hours each employee worked per day
c) How successful in terms of dealing with the agent query were they
d) How long it took on average to answer the call
e) How much was each employee paid to successfully deal with a query, and finally
f) All data to be updated weekly
Shouldn't cost them more than £24/week as this will all be digitialised.
Some people need to head back to the golf course and stay there - well one particular HMRC director of MTD!!
Well that is hardly a high bar to surpass.
In footballing terms the ATO might well be Premier division, poor old HMRC would struggle in the Spartan South Midlands Division 1!!
In line with ICAEW fines to the Big 4, would his payout be reduced by 25% if he went early?