HMRC has sent out thousands of incorrect tax statements, and made refunds of tax that are wrong.
Time and again I have said you cannot run a tax system on the cheap and that such a system does need plenty of highly trained people who have a very accurate sense of what might, can and does go wrong.
HMRC is being denied those resources. Don't blame them for the current mistake.
The blame lies fairly and squarely at George Osborne's door.
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Or perhaps IDS, whose insistence on having RTI rushed in to support UC denied HMRC the chance to test it properly? All the money in the world couldn’t have bought HMRC & business the familiarity with the new processes that time would have allowed.
i don’t understand why they have a problem , this is paye so they get all the information in from the employers and tax payers, it just needs crunching and printing some letters . what has caused the miscalculation – bad data from the taxpayer? bad software at hmrc ? why is calculating a tax code so hard to get right ?
If the system is under-resourced so under checked things go wrong
And if there are few people trained to spot the error that is all the easier
The number of people who can calculate tax from first principles as we used to do is declining
Every government has tinkered with PAYE over the years and turned it into a monstrously complex thing that is incredibly difficult for the employee, employer and HMRC to understand.
There are so many exceptions and special cases that there will always be mistakes. Who would really design a system where Income Tax and National Insurance were calculated in completely different ways on different amounts for the same payment?
Even when you think you have it right you can be tripped up by something you didn’t know about. Computers help to make life a little easier, but there are so many special cases that errors will be made and when they are the complexity of the whole thing is so high that it will not be immediately obvious.
PAYE doesn’t need to be taxing, but it most certainly is and anybody that thinks it isn’t has never dealt with an employee with slightly more unusual circumstances.
If you’ve got a money making machine, you don’t neglect it, fail to service it or trade it in for a less powerful version.
Unless you’re a neoliberal driven government
Precisely.
No system is perfect. What would be an acceptable error rate? Less than 1%?
The system will never be perfect, I agree
The problem is the lack of checks to identify that fact
Why don’t you post this piece on Jolyon Maugham’s blog and get some balanced opinions on it?
Balanced opinion is welcome here
The usual trolls are already all over Jolyon’s efforts and will discredit it
I think it’s already clear he realises that
Gordon Brown merged the Inland Revenue and Customs. He planned over 12,500 job cuts. Nothing to do with Osborne.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_Revenue_and_Customs
There have been 40,000
A great deal to do with Osborne
Partial truths are unbecoming
This BBC story from 2008 states the Gordon Brown cut 17,000 jobs. See last paragraph.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7764550.stm
And now it is 40,000
Also can you provide a reference for your claim. I did for both of mine.
HMRC’s current business plan
All in my latest report on the tax gap for PCS
You can use Google
If you make claims then it is your job to back them up.
I have – time after time, after time and I do not need to do so on demand for someone who is lazy enough to not even identify themselves properly
It is the practice for any serious commentator on matters that involve facts to provide references to back up their claims. Failure to do so discredits the claim. I am not the one making the initial assertion. When I made my responses I cited reputable sources. It staggers me that anyone take you seriously when you fail to respect basic norms.
I have written millions of words on these issues
There are links all over this site
And my research work is deeply referenced
I am not your personal google search engine
And right now, I’m suggesting you’re just another time wasting troll – and no one takes them seriosuly
When you merge two large Government departments, you clearly aim to achieve economies of scale, and this was what the initial round of jobs cuts were designed to achieve; however, Labour continued to cut jobs from the department as part of a longer term plan, against a backdrop of a still buoyant economy and rising tax revenues. Because of the rosy economic outlook as late as 2007, no-one other than PCS and our generous host were really talking about the tax gap. I am not going to defend that decision to continue cutting jobs, but that context is important.
However, when the recession hit, it was clear to anyone with half a brain that the bulk of the deficit was as a result of a massive fall in tax revenue; and now that it was clear that the tax gap was a significant problem to be tackled (never mind whose figures you believe). Despite this new reality, the coalition chose to accelerate the cutting in the very department that could help close that tax gap.
The published HMRC business plan states that its aim is to reduce staff to 52,000 by 2016; which would make it half the size it was when it merged.
And any knowledgable insider will tell you that the plan is to go way beyond that as part of the 20/20 vision; HMRC is pinning all hopes on its digital agenda, and you can expect staff numbers to drop to less than 30,000 in the next few years unless there is a complete change in direction.
Thank you
The HMRC vision will cripple the organisation, and this country, and tax cheats will have a field day
And still the pedants argue that this isn’t happening because in their opinion a reference changes reality
Latest announcement due Thursday
http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/revenue_and_customs_group/latest-news/index.cfm/workforce-management-announcement
As an employee of HMRC who just last week was talking to somebody who was telling me how many people have left just one office because they’re sick and tired of the ludicrous PMR system forced on the staff, just as it is being dropped in the private sector, I can only agree wholeheartedly with the above.
Agree with general thrust but blaming George Osborne alone is not fair.
This has been going on for years. In fact it is somewhat counter productive to blame George Osborne alone because it produces the easy answer of “blame the Coalition” , which is going to be thrown back again as the usual Left Wing Tosh. What we need,
in my opinion, is root and branch reform of the Treasury and HMRC – agreed on an all party basis, with proper future legislative scrutiny of tax legislation including an expertly qualified Parliamentary committee.
I accept your suggestion
And it was not only the Coalition – as I said at the time