HMRC needs to take a long, hard look at how it manages the nation’s tax affairs and how it deals with taxpayers, says Tony Margaritelli.
I think I can safely say that HMRC have not had a good time of it lately. We’ve had blistering reports from the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office and, of course, we had the conclusion of the annual filing deadline hiatus and all in the past month or so.
What was HMRC’s response? Well, basically nothing much, other than denials and choosing to ignore the obvious and focus on anything that could be construed as good from their standpoint.
Let’s start with the 31 January filing deadline. Around 4,400 people filed their tax return on Christmas Day, around 40,000 people filed it over the three-day holiday period, with a staggering 732,498 returns filed on 31 January. On 3 January HMRC announced that nearly 5.5million returns still needed to be filed, which is getting on for HALF of the 12 million expected for the year. And then we get the announcement that 1.1million failed to file on time, close to 10%. Now, discounting the obvious ‘nice little earner’ comments, these figures highlight that by any standard HMRC have failed to make taxpayers recognise that last-minute filing is not a good thing and that the pressure it brings on HMRC staff, agents and taxpayers alike (not for me their ‘customers’) is off the scale.
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