HMRC's Lamentable Negligence Costs Taxpayers £2M

A four year investigation (and subsequent court case) by HMRC into alleged £500K red diesel fraud has gone down the toilet thanks to HMRC's systemic failures.

For good measure, a linked trial also had to be abandoned due to errors on the part of investigating officers from HMRC.

Judge Robert Trevor-Jones said the fraud case showed "lamentable negligence" and was indicative of a more widespread problem.

In December 2013, officers from customs and excise (HMRC) raided tanker driver Peter Norton's home. He was charged with others with conspiracy to evade VAT by selling nearly £500,000 of laundered so-called red diesel fuel.

Red diesel is only legal for off-road vehicles such as tractors, and has a much lower VAT rate.

A VAT fraud involving the fuel works by removing the red dye to make it look like regular diesel before the fuel is then sold on fraudulently at the higher VAT rate.
Peter Norton has always denied any wrongdoing.

After a four-year investigation by HMRC, the case went to trial in January at Liverpool Crown Court.

However, one month into the trial, a vast amount of information that should have been disclosed to the defence was identified on the laptop of the HMRC investigating officer, Daniel Grundy.

The prosecution asked for an adjournment to sift through the material that should have been disclosed.

Judge Trevor-Jones refused and the trial collapsed.

In his ruling, he said:

"I accept that the failure here can properly be described as negligent, but it was negligence to a lamentable degree.

It is indicative of a more systemic failure going beyond the omissions of just one officer."

The competence, even credibility, of the investigative team has clearly been tainted."

The same disclosure failings meant that a linked trial of petrol station owners, due to begin a few weeks later, was also abandoned.

Lawyers in the case estimate the two trials cost in excess of £2m of public money.

An HMRC spokesperson said they "fully accept" the failings, but would be working closely with the CPS to "see what lessons can be learned."


Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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Something Stinks at The BBC

That’s all very well but they are using taxpayers money to protect a selected few whilst tens of thousands of other contractors are abandoned and left to go bankrupt & the government are aware of it. https://t.co/bizBEn26OV

— Gordon Berry (@wealthagent) April 26, 2018

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

The Robots Are Still Coming

Way back in 2016 I wrote this:

"As per a loyal reader, it appears that the robots are coming:

"The SMS text messages are only the beginning. I work for the twats called HMRC in the robotics team and they are planning on robots answering the calls to replace call centre staff jobs. Its already done on self serve time to pay and instalment arrangements, but the wider hmrc will have this roll out, oh and the fuck up that windows 10 is coming to hmrc."

This will end in tears!"

Now here we are in 2018, and Jacky Wright, HMRC’s chief digital & information officer, recently announced the milestone in HMRC’s modernisation programme at Government Computing’s GovTech2018 conference in London.

HMRC confirmed that it has processed 10m transactions using robots since 2015, improved its efficiency and customer experience.

Government Computing reports that HMRC has described its robots as:

“programmed pieces of software that process items in the same way as humans would.

They work repetitive jobs, freeing up staff to undertake more meaningful, complex and interesting work, the kind of work that requires decision-making and human judgement.”

HMRC regards the 10m milestone marks significant progress for HMRC’s IT Project team as it works towards achieving greater automation of the functions that do not require human input.

Wright said:

“This is a major milestone towards HMRC’s digital transformation, where we are now deploying the most advanced IT to improve the accuracy and speed of our services. HMRC aims to be the world's most digitally advanced tax authority, and by making our 10 millionth transaction by a robot, we are making great progress towards that goal. 

We have over 50 different automations working across our IT estate. By automating simple and repetitive tasks, we are able to free up our staff to undertake more meaningful and interesting work that requires decision making and human intelligence. The public is getting a better service and HMRC is doing its work more efficiently.”

So there you go folks, taxpayers are receiving a better service!

Discuss.....

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC's Dodgy Pensions Calculator Nixed

HMRC is giving pension savers incorrect information which could result in them missing out on reliefs worth tens of thousands of pounds.

As a result of this screw up, HMRC has been forced to take down a calculator that was drastically underestimating the amount people can save into their pensions.

Royal London has uncovered a calculator that said one customer has an annual allowance of just £10,000, when it should have been £35,000.

Royal London found the calculator was producing the wrong figures for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 tax years. HMRC has admitted the errors and said it has since taken the calculator offline.

An HMRC  spokesman is quoted by the Telegraph:

"We are sorry that the calculator isn’t working as it should in some cases. 

The calculator is no longer available as it is being updated." 

HMRC advised individuals to use its online guidance documents to manually calculate their annual allowance.

Royal London's Steve Webb, a former pensions minister, said it was "totally unacceptable" for a government website to operate "when it contains blunders of this sort".

"It is beyond belief that they are knowingly allowing taxpayers to get incorrect information from their website and potentially to make major financial decisions on the strength of dodgy data."

I can't wait for MTD!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance




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#LycaGate - HMRC Denies Then Undenies Letter

HMRC denied the #LycaGate letter:

“No HMRC official would ever write such a letter. This is the United Kingdom for God’s sake, not some third world banana republic where the organs of state are in hock to some sort of kleptocracy.” 

HMRC then undenied it...

However, BuzzFeed said that another spokesman later called the situation “regrettable” after verifying content of an email seen by the news outlet.

Oops!

Does this mean that the UK is a banana republic?

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



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HMRC Is A Political Tool

Big league stuff. HMRC will be quizzed in Parliament on this through the Treasury Committee. The sub- committee just opened an enquiry into this kind of thing on Tuesday morning. https://t.co/LsJhIsrGNY

— John Mann (@JohnMannMP) April 19, 2018

As I have noted and warned many times before on this site, HMRC is being politicised.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

A Blast From The Past!

UK Border Agency implicated in the Windrush scandal. And, no surprise to the taxnerd community, who was was CEO of the Border Agency at that time, but... wait for it, ... no less than... wait for it .... Lin Homer.

— Andrew Brooks (@taxbod) April 18, 2018

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC Investigating One in Ten SMEs

One in ten small businesses is under investigation by the taxman - equivalent to more than half a million at any one time.

HMRC told the Treasury select committee it is going after small businesses in an attempt to get back the £34 billion tax it failed to collect in 2015- 2016. It said small businesses are responsible for 46 per cent of this tax gap.

However, MPs accused HMRC of making it harder for businesses to file correct returns by shutting down local tax offices.

Stewart Hosie said:

“Wouldn't it be so much easier if they [small businesses] could go to the local tax office with their accounts and have them check before submitting.”

Yet HMRC have told us all that MTD will make things easier!!

HMRC loves low hanging fruit.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC's CEST is Crap

Last week I wrote about HMRC's slapdash CEST Tool.

The ICAEW has gone one better:

"HMRC’s check employment status tool (CEST) is not suitable for use in the private sector. 

HMRC has stated that CEST does not cover all scenarios, including the mutuality of obligations master and servant test, and that the tool was designed based on public sector contracts. 

Further, there are also no rights of appeal for individual workers who disagree with the CEST status decision."

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC Reneges On A Promise

HMRC staff at Sidlaw House in Dundee Technology Park had been told by HMRC that they would move over to the DWP to undertake Universal Credit work over the next three years.

However, HMRC has changed its plans and staff have now been told that no positions can be guaranteed with the DWP once the HMRC’s Tax Credits work in Dundee ends in three years’ time.

Dundee West MP Chris Law is quoted by The Courier:

“This is a devastating betrayal for the highly-skilled staff at Sidlaw House, many of whom have dedicated years of loyal service to HMRC, and I share their anger and disappointment in this Tory U-Turn following our campaign in 2015 that had secured work at the offices.

The UK Government gave me written assurances then that the staff at Sidlaw House would definitely be transferred to Universal Credit Services in the DWP, assurances that they have now ripped up.

This disgraceful decision by the Tories proves once again that they are more interested in needless cuts than protecting the jobs and livelihoods of the people of Dundee, and cannot be trusted to lead our city or our country.”

An HMRC spokesman said:

“In 2016, we announced that tax credits customer services advisers would be transferring to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

DWP will now be able to deliver as planned without the level of additional resource it originally expected, and so the managed moves of HMRC staff to DWP will not be going ahead as planned.

We will be doing everything we can to keep their skills, knowledge and experience, either in HMRC or elsewhere in the civil service, as the tax credits work they do reduces in the years ahead.”

No apology, simply a "promise" to do "everything..to keep their skills".

Well I don't think that "promise" is worth the paper it is printed on.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

An Excellent Idea!

Good summary from @DellaHudsonFCA .

I’ve often thought it would be helpful if front line HMRC staff had the authority to make small payments (£50 or some flowers) to say “sorry”.

Organisations such as BA, M&S etc do this and it can defuse a problem quickly. https://t.co/eXEwCCmWfO

— Heather Self (@hselftax) April 12, 2018

Saying "sorry" would in fact be a start!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC Thrown Off Course By Brexit

HMRC is shitting itself that its Customs operations will fall apart after Brexit.

In a recent letter to MPs on the Commons public accounts committee, Jon Thompson, CEO of HMRC, said he is in discussions with the Treasury about which projects to stop or extend in order to dedicate more resources to ensuring customs operations continue to function after Brexit.

The FT reports that HMRC said on Wednesday that it could not confirm which of its current 267 projects would get the chop or be postponed, because discussions with Treasury were ongoing.

It stressed that a priority for HMRC was its transition to a new Customs Declaration Service, which the department expects to be in place by next January. The new computer system is intended to be able to cope with the expected huge increase in customs declarations after the UK leaves the EU in March 2019.

Thompson previously told MPs that Brexit had increased HMRC’s workload by 15 per cent and would threaten some of the “pretty huge” transformation under way at the Revenue that has been described as “the biggest organisational change programme in Europe”.

Suffice to say, Thompson’s letter is him signalling that there will be more slippage in HMRC’s making tax digital project, which is due to go into effect for companies with turnover above the £85,000 value added tax threshold from next April — just two days after the UK is set to leave the EU.

Thompson said:

“At this stage I can say that we have proposed a number of projects which should stop, or not start and a number which should be stretched out over a longer timescale.

We took our initial proposals to Treasury ministers in early February and we will update the [public accounts] committee as soon as final decisions have been taken.”

Good luck with all that then!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Let's Hear It For The Accountants Who Filed Over 3M Returns In January!

Accountants make January work for HMRC https://t.co/5VxRgIwzrR Who filed over 60% of the Returns in January? Accountants that's who. So a huge well done to every one of them for their efforts because HMRC can't be bothered to even acknowledge the monumental effort it took

— Tony Margaritelli (@icpa_t) April 11, 2018

Well said sir!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC's Slapdash CEST Tool

Oh dear, HMRC may have made another error wrt tax calculations.

The HR Director reports that more than 100,000 people could be facing incorrect tax bills as HMRC admits it has no detailed proof to demonstrate that its Check Employment Status for Tax (CEST) tool is accurate. 

The admission was extracted by a series of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests as part of a five month investigation by contracting authority ContractorCalculator. HMRC has stonewalled a series of requests for evidence and information from ContractorCalculator but finally responded to say that the taxman holds no detailed test data at all:

“The CEST tool testing was done by a workshop. The only documented output of the workshops is the set of rules used by the tool.

Our records show that HMRC has used the CEST tool to test all the cases cited in your request, but we do not have a record of how each question was answered as part of the testing, only the end determination.”

Following the release of CEST, HMRC has continued to champion its accuracy despite evidence from ContractorCalculator. The contracting site tested CEST against the historic IR35 cases in March last year and discovered that HMRC’s tool was unable to return the correct outcome in 37 percent of cases.

More recently, at a BBC select committee hearing, it was revealed that CEST had failed 97 percent of BBC broadcasters who had used the tool, prompting Jolyon Maugham QC to dismiss HMRC’s efforts at trying to achieve an “impossibly difficult” task.

Dave Chaplin, CEO and founder of ContractorCalculator said:

“I am incredulous that a fundamental piece of the CEST jigsaw is missing. For a tool of such importance, the lack of rigour involved in its testing methodology is astonishing. You have to wonder if HMRC has shredded any evidence to cover up CEST’s shortcomings?

HMRC publicly claimed that the CEST tool gives the right result provided the correct answers are entered into the tool but have chosen not to document any of those answers used during their testing process. There is a very simple way they can resolve this challenge – just publish the results of the 23 court cases, as put through CEST and prove their claims.

HMRC has taken a slapdash approach to building a tool that is clearly not fit for purpose, has not been tested properly and is missing important case law. HMRC tells us that it intends to release more information in April, so it will be intriguing to hear what HMRC has to say in its defence, a defence that seems to be unravelling as we learn more.

People’s lives and livelihoods are in tatters, not just at the BBC, as has been widely reported, but in other public services too. By forcing false employment upon people, HMRC could now face tens of thousands of claims for tax refunds and we won’t know what the scale of this is likely to be until January 2019 next year. 

Could this be HMRC’s PPI scandal? 

It’s even more appalling that HMRC wants to roll-out to the private sector the very same IR35 rules that have caused this chaos in the public sector. HMRC has significantly fallen down on its duty of care to businesses and tax payers.”

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

HMRC's Overzealous Late Filing Penalties

HMRC is being accused by tax professionals of being overzealous in its desire to fine people first, and ask questions later wrt late tax returns.

HMRC published figures, following a freedom of information request from Clifford Chance, that show it cancelled 270,000 late filing penalties in 2016 and 400,000 and 610,000 penalties in 2014 and 2015, respectively (more than a third of the total number of fines issued in both years).

HMRC said that most of these penalties were cancelled after taxpayers provided a “reasonable excuse” for submitting their tax returns late, such as the death of a close relative shortly before the filing deadline, or an unexpected stay in hospital.

The FT quotes HMRC:

“We don’t want penalties, we just want tax returns.

Taxpayers with a reasonable excuse for filing late or who have been taken out of [the self-assessment system] do not have to pay penalties. Taxpayers who file on time are not issued with penalties.” 

Dan Neidle, a partner at Clifford Chance who submitted the FOI, said he filed a self-assessment tax return on time at the end of December last year.

At the end of January 2018, he received a penalty of £100 from HMRC because his tax return “was not sent in on time”. Mr Neidle appealed the penalty, which was overturned by HMRC at the end of last month.

HMRC said in its letter accepting his appeal that the lawyer should “make sure that you send in your tax returns and pay the tax you owe on time in the future”.

 “If you do this, we won’t charge any penalties.” 

Cheeky bastards!

Mr Neidle said:

“The sheer number of penalties HMRC is issuing, presumably on an entirely automated basis, is sobering. The large number subsequently cancelled, and the harsh comments HMRC has received from the judiciary on a number of recent appeals, suggests something is going wrong. 

The question is how many people are ending up paying penalties that were unlawfully issued.” 

Mitch Young, co-founder of Fusion Consulting, which specialises in tax and IT advice, said a number of his clients had also received late penalty notices “incorrectly, even when they have submitted their self-assessment tax returns well before the deadline”.

The mistake was made either because of a system error with HMRC, or because the tax authority had issued duplicate unique tax reference numbers.

HMRC says it does not keep a record of why penalties are cancelled. In 2017, it stopped recording how many late return penalties were cancelled “due to costs and a lack [of] a business need”, it said in its response to the FOI request.

Mr Neidle questioned this decision, saying:

“If HMRC doesn’t track the number of penalties wrongly issued, how can they learn from their mistakes?”

I can answer that, HMRC has no interest in learning from its "mistakes"!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Happy New Tax Year Everyone!

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

Assistant Commercial Director - IT Contract Management HMRC £96K

HMRC is offering an annual salary of £96K for an assistant commercial director - IT contract management, to oversee its engagements with IT suppliers as it nears the post-Aspire era.

The IT outsourcing deal with Capgemini and Fujitsu, which was originally due to end in 2017, is now going through a phased migration, with all services due to be retendered or brought back in house by 2020.

As per the advert:

“HMRC has recently exited the Aspire contract for IT provision with commercial staff playing a leading role,” the department said. “In doing so, it has reached a negotiated position with incumbent suppliers and activity has been undertaken to source suppliers for newly defined elements of the bought-out services. New contracts will allow the department to take better advantage of digital innovations, and keep pace with digital and technology trends of the future.”

The role, which will be based in Telford or London, comes with a salary of up to £95,950.
The successful candidate will manage a team of about 10 contract managers, and will report into the head of commercial contract management. The IT contract chief will help manage a hundredfold increase in the organisation’s supply chain.

HMRC said:

“You will play a key role in managing our supply base effectively through the IT transformation as HMRC continues to move away from the single biggest IT outsource deal in Europe, Aspire, to a supply chain of over 200 suppliers. You and your team will be closely involved in managing and supporting the ongoing transition to the new supplier environment.”

Key Responsibilities:

▪ Proactively lead, manage and develop a team of contract managers, giving clear direction and support to maximise capability, quality and productivity. Ensure the appropriate level and number of staff are assigned to each eligible contract.
▪ Implement the strategic direction of HMRC contract management.
▪ Oversee production and delivery of contract management team plans, pipelines and actions for your category pillar
▪ IT to deliver effective contractual outcomes, including quality, value, delivery, innovation and continuous improvement agendas.
▪ Provide assurance that the policies, procedures, action plans and initiatives for Commercial Contract Management and Supplier Relationship Management are adhered to consistently across IT category pillar and business areas, working within the Supply Chain Assurance framework.
▪ Build and maintain key relationships across the business, promoting collaboration between business areas, and commercial teams.
▪ Ensure an effective risk management framework is in place to map, manage and mitigate supply chain risk for your category pillar.
▪ Support the delivery of a SRM programme for strategic suppliers within IT category driving additional value (service, cost and risk) beyond that originally contracted.

Key Criteria: To be successful, candidates will need to demonstrate capability against the following criteria:

▪ Has a strong delivery focus with the ability to operate successfully and deliver within a challenging and complex environment.
▪ Needs to be resilient – the transformation programme within IT and the structural changes in Commercial will provide challenges and opportunities.
▪ Extensive experience of managing strategic IT suppliers.
▪ Able to build and maintain effective customer and supplier relationships.
▪ Strong negotiator, with a drive to deliver value for money and achieve excellent service from our suppliers.
▪ Applicants must have achieved an A or a B* at a GCF Assessment and Development Centre (ADC) or be willing** to attend an ADC.

Applications are open until 16 April.

Once candidates have been "sifted", successful applicants will be invited to an assessment centre during the week commencing 7 May.

Final panel interviews will take place the following week.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"

PAYE Crash Workaround

My thanks to loyal reader Paul Gibson (he has given me permission to publish his details) a 75 year old ex IT Director. He currently develops business applications in Visual Basic for several charities, for one of which he also runs the payroll.

He encountered a problem when dealing with HMRC online PAYE, and has provided a workaround for it.

Please note: this may not work for everyone, always take back ups before trying it.

PROBLEM: After running the latest update, Basic PAYE Tools crashes with the error: “Basic PAYE Tools could not access the database”


SOLUTION:

1. Using File Explorer, navigate to directory OS[C:]\Users\User_Name
2. With the View Tab, check “Hidden Items” – the Folder “AppData” should now be displayed
3. Navigate to \AppData\Roaming\HMRC\payetools-rti
4. Take a back-up copy of the complete contents of folder “payetools-rti” as a precaution
5. Click on the “payetools-rti” folder and rename Data Base File “sqlite3” to “sqlite3x” (or sqlite3xx if sqlite3x already exists)
6. Click the “backups” folder
7. Select the latest back up folder with the format:
RTI-9999_YYYY-MM-DD_EXIT and Copy & Paste it to your Desktop
8. Now run Basic PAYE Tools – this may take up to 10 minutes to load as it rebuilds “sqlite3”
9. Under Menu, click “Restore your data”
10. Browse to the directory This PC\Desktop and click the back up folder pasted to the Desktop at Step 6.
11.Click “Next” to restore your data – this will also take up to 10 minutes
12. You should now be able to run updated PAYE Tools with your latest data.
13. If you still have problems, restore the backup “payetools-rti” folder and contact HMRC support.

Tax does have to be taxing.

Professional Cover Against the Threat of Costly TAX and VAT Investigations

Insurance to protect you against the cost of enquiry or dispute with HMRC is available from several sources including Solar Tax Investigation Insurance.

Ken Frost has negotiated a 10% discount on any polices that may suit your needs.

However, neither Ken Frost nor HMRCISSHITE either endorses or recommends their services.

What is Solar Tax Investigation Insurance?

Solar Tax Investigation Insurance is a tax-fee protection service that will pay up to £75,000 towards your accountant's fees in the event of an HM Revenue & Customs full enquiry or dispute.

To find out more, please use this link Solar Tax Investigation Insurance



HMRC Is Shite (www.hmrcisshite.com), also available via the domain www.hmrconline.com, is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"