I noticed an exchange in Parliament yesterday, albeit in written answers, in which Catherine McKinnell MP asked David Gauke MP, the minister she shadows:
How many staff he expects to be employed in each area of HM Revenue and Customs' activity on 31 March (a) 2013 and (b) 2014?
Gauke answered with this table:
So, with the exception of enforcement and compliance (which is a pretty generic term for tax return processing in many cases and where the increase relates very largely to some extra staff under the supposed 'reinvestment' scheme) HMRC is going to see significant falls in front line staff, especially in personal tax where service has been particularly poor.
That's especially true amongst specialists tackling business tax (where most evasion takes place), corporate tax (where most high end abuse takes place) and personal tax (where most straightforward moonlighting and non-declaration occurs.
No wonder the Public Accounts Committee says H M Revenue & Customs is not serious about the tax gap. How can they be when in all areas where they've got to address it then will be between 6% and over 11 staff down in the next year.
This is no way to run a tax authority.
And it's no way to clear a deficit.
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Very worrying numbers for any of us interested in seeing reduced tax avoidance.
This is probably a daft question, but what’s the difference between “business tax” and “corporate services” I wonder?
Richard, there’s a bit of a backlash against Margaret Hodge in this week’s Taxation, which may interest you and other readers of your blog.
http://www.taxation.co.uk/taxation/Articles/2013/02/06/53361/tax-prat-year#comment-323741
I thought it was an interesting bit of spin that the reductions are shown as a positive percentage in the table. I then looked at the first link above to see the context of the question to see whether the “reduction as a positive” made sense but there is no percentage change column in the original. Did someone add it or was it there originally and taken off? It doesn’t change the meaning of the post or the answer but just curious to know about the presentation of the data.
My work
It’s entirely inappropriate to be reducing HMRC resources: it’s a profit centre, not a cost centre.
It reminds me of the first time I came across an internal management review of my then employer’s performance against budget (many years ago now). Essentially, cost of sales were far too high and should be brought down next period; the fact that revenue was up by even more was ignored, as was the link between the two.
As I work in HMRC, I can confirm that the continual reduction in staff, and the endless politically motivated attacks by politicians against the pensions, pay and T&C’s of its employees is reducing moral and motivation. I note that alongside the article attacking the PAC in Taxation as pointed out by Theremustbeanotherway, there was a link to another about how HMRC has made £269m in Savings, mostly by staff reductions; and that according to the NAO, these would need to be even more of these in future, yet at the same time we are supposed to bring in more tax, provide better customer service, and implement RTI.
As Pellinor says, this is an entirely inappropriate way to view HMRC. You won’t stop tax evasion or provide a better service to the public with fewer and fewer, increasingly demotivated staff. Looking at the Taxation article, I spoke to somebody who has had years of experience in his field, and is phoned up by his counterparts in the Big 4 for his advice. He’s getting so fed up with the way things are going that he may look to jump ship to one of them when they next do a recruitment drive; and this from somebody who strongly believes in the idea of public service.
So when you hear anyone in this government talk about ‘getting tough on tax avoidance, tax cheats……etc’, just remeber that actions speak louder than words.