Taxman defends debt retrieval priorities - Accountancy Age.

The Revenue says it is not chasing debts of less than £10,000.

Which is blatrantly absurd - for a loot of self employed people that is more than their tax bill for the year.

Why? Because as the PCS union rightly say that the 18,000 staff shed by HMRC since 2004 as part of an efficiency programme has meant the department has ‘not been able to focus on debts of less than £10,000’. Thed additional 7,000 staff cuts planned over the next two years can only further hinder debt collection.

So the tax gap gets bigger, and the burden of tax rates will ahve to rise at a time when the governemtn needs every penny it can get.

There is not one iota of sense in this strategy: it is the madness of the corporate model applied to a revenue collecting government department coupled to the inherent belief that tax is a bad thing and so the less of it that HMRC recover the better.

This has to change.

But the policy has also to be appropriately applied: in the alst few days I have seen a threat of legal action from HM Revenue & Customs to recover £3.31. What is worse - it was abundantly clear that this significant debt had already been paid.