A tax inspector talked about what it’s really like in HMRC on the Today programme this morning.
Listen again here.
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Some of the comments, mentioning you, are here
http://taxjustice.blogspot.com/2010/09/british-tax-offices-at-melting-point.html
But of course there’s still some people whow know better – we’ve got the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Tax Group, who complains that HMRC are arrogant, and shows how much he knows by saying that the Department’s grown and grown (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11265400), and John Stokdyk at Accounting Web (http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/blogs/jstokdyk/team-blog/hmrc-crisis-i-feel-your-pain), who apparently on the basis of one phone call and some conversations with accountants, talks about an endemic culture of mediocrity and arrogance.
Meanwhile, working for HMRC, we’re being squeezed so much that I had to get authorisation from a senior manager the other day to buy a twenty quid train ticket to get to a training seminar on avoidance techniques. Not the best environmment for collecting what’s owed.
You only have to look at the LVCR mess to realise how useless HMRC are. My daughter of 11 can understand the consequence of effectively allowing tax avoidance on internet retail. It seems HMRC cannot and that appears to be because they don’t actually understand the mechanics of internet retail. What else have they screwed up that we don’t yet know about….
Richard (Allen)
You seem to be under the impression that it’s HMRC who have prevented any action on LVCR. I can’t say for certain, and if you have reason to think different fair play to you, but I’ve got to say that I doubt that’s the case. As with the Non-Doms, HMRC doesn’t make the policy, it just implements it.
You may be right but HMRC certainly answer the mail and give the excuses, which in my view makes them just as guilty. Or maybe I’m just old fashioned.