{"id":29160,"date":"2015-05-30T10:51:46","date_gmt":"2015-05-30T09:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=29160"},"modified":"2015-05-30T10:51:46","modified_gmt":"2015-05-30T09:51:46","slug":"when-hmrc-cannot-operate-at-the-most-basic-level-somethings-profoundly-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2015\/05\/30\/when-hmrc-cannot-operate-at-the-most-basic-level-somethings-profoundly-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"When HMRC cannot operate at the most basic level something’s profoundly wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Guardian has reported:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

People who filed late tax returns have been let off a \u00a3100 fine for missing the deadline, it has been reported.<\/p>\n

An internal memo leaked to the [Daily Telegraph]\u00a0revealed that HMRC<\/a> staff were asked to write off the fine without further investigation for individuals who could show mitigating circumstances, and who appealed after paying their tax bill.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As they then report:<\/p>\n

According to the Telegraph, the memo to HMRC staff said: \u201cOur penalty regime is intended to influence customer behaviour, but also be clear and cost-effective, fair and proportionate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current way of managing penalties does not meet these objectives, and so we have decided to take a more proportionate approach where a customer has filed their return late, and then appealed against their penalty \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThis means that in the vast majority of cases we will be accepting the customer\u2019s grounds for appeal, and we can cancel the penalty.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The explanation given to the Telegraph was:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to focus more and more of our resources on investigating major tax avoidance and evasion rather than penalising ordinary people who are trying to do the right thing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is absurd for several reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n

Firstly, if penalties are randomly enforced there is no justice. This is ethically wrong.<\/p>\n

Second, if penalties are routinely found to be unjust they should not be charged. This action does, then, demand a review of the penalty regime.<\/p>\n

Third, if the tax system cannot be enforced then HMRC is very clearly a failing organisation.<\/p>\n

The case for reviewing HMRC, its governance, ethics and resourcing is now overwhelming. But when will it happen? And when will we get the Office for Tax Responsibility that is so obviously required?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Guardian has reported: People who filed late tax returns have been let off a \u00a3100 fine for missing the deadline, it has been
 Read the full article…<\/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":[107,156],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hmrc","category-office-for-tax-responsibility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29160","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=29160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}