{"id":15711,"date":"2012-05-24T09:44:42","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T08:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=15711"},"modified":"2012-05-24T09:44:42","modified_gmt":"2012-05-24T08:44:42","slug":"sacking-staff-at-hmrc-has-cost-the-country-at-least-1-1-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/05\/24\/sacking-staff-at-hmrc-has-cost-the-country-at-least-1-1-billion\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacking staff at HMRC has cost the country at least \u00c2\u00a31.1 billion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0Associated\u00a0Press summary of the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.publications.parliament.uk\/pa\/cm201012\/cmselect\/cmpubacc\/1892\/189205.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Parliamentary\u00a0Accounts Committee report<\/a> on the effectiveness of HMRC says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Job cuts among revenue officials meant GBP1.1 billion less unpaid tax was\u00a0recouped than could have been, a public spending watchdog said.<\/p>\n<p>The influential public accounts committee praised an HM Revenue and\u00a0Customs crackdown which has brought in an extra GBP4.32 billion in five\u00a0years - 11 times what it cost.<\/p>\n<p>But it said the decision to axe 3,300 posts at the same time appeared to\u00a0have undermined its effectiveness and urged caution over further\u00a0reductions.<\/p>\n<p>\"We are not convinced that the decision to reduce staff numbers working\u00a0in this area in the past represented value for money for the taxpayer,\"\u00a0it said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I've long argued this.<\/p>\n<p>I'm delighted to see parliamentarians agree.<\/p>\n<p>And that they also agree that the rate of return on\u00a0investment\u00a0in new staff is very high.<\/p>\n<p>I argue we should spend at least \u00a31 billion more on 20,000 new staff at HMRC.<\/p>\n<p>And if, as I'm recommending in a report to be published by PCS today, we make some changes in\u00a0legislation\u00a0as well, delivering a\u00a0truly\u00a0effective\u00a0general anti-avoidance rule, means to\u00a0identify\u00a0which small companies are really\u00a0trading\u00a0and\u00a0country-by-country reporting,\u00a0amongst\u00a0other things, then I am still convinced that the\u00a0Revenue's\u00a0ambitions\u00a0on tax collection are far too modest. I believe we could recover at least \u00a320 billion. The PAC does not go that far - but they agree with me that HMRC is far too timid.<\/p>\n<p>And what everyone but HMRC and the\u00a0Tories\u00a0seem to agree upon is that if we want to close the deficit then this is the way to do it - and that\u00a0austerity\u00a0is not.<\/p>\n<p>The time for a radical change in our\u00a0approach\u00a0to tax\u00a0management\u00a0has arrived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0Associated\u00a0Press summary of the\u00a0Parliamentary\u00a0Accounts Committee report on the effectiveness of HMRC says: Job cuts among revenue officials meant GBP1.1 billion less unpaid tax was\u00a0recouped than<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/05\/24\/sacking-staff-at-hmrc-has-cost-the-country-at-least-1-1-billion\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tax-gap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}