My headline on my article in the last issue of this magazine was ‘We are in a perfect storm. Where do we go from here?’ The issue contained several contributors lamenting the service, or the lack of service, provided by HMRC. Anton Lane said: “Tax is a mechanism to pay for poor service and to pay those that check you paid the right amount of tax, and they may not have regard for the law and procedures they set themselves.” Matt Hall was forthright in stating: “Taxpayers are no more ‘customers’ of HMRC than a kidnap victim is their captors’ guest. Rather than impose standards for tax agents HMRC should sort its own house out.”
When it came to R&D, Dave Wase said: “With this constant pressure to increase the tax yield arising from enquiries HMRC have looked across their patch at new veins of yield to exploit.”
These are respected practitioners pushed to vent their frustrations and anger by poor HMRC standards of service. Then on 7 December HMRC announced planned changes to the ADL.
It said: “Between 11 December 2023 and 31 January 2024, we are also prioritising our available resource on the ADL to support the SA peak.
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