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HMRC

Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

Published: 2013-03-18

Total Pages: 36


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In 2011-12, 20 million phone calls to HMRC were not answered. It cost the callers £136 million while they waited to speak to an adviser. And, against its target of responding to 80% of letters within 15 days, the department managed to reply to just 66%. Officials are beginning to realize that good customer service lies at the heart of any strategy to maximize revenues while cutting costs. Callers will no longer be forced to use the more expensive 0845 numbers. Other planned changes include the resolution of more queries first time and a call-back service where this is not possible. However, HMRC's new target of answering 80% of calls within five minutes is still woefully short of the industry standard of answering 80% of calls within 20 seconds. Just how the department is going to improve standards of customer service, given the prospect of its having fewer staff and receiving a higher volume of calls, is open to question. HMRC plans to cut the number of customer-facing staff by a third by 2015. At the same time, the stresses associated with introducing the Real Time Information System, Universal Credit and changes to child benefit are likely to drive up the number of phone calls to the department. HMRC is also to close all of its 281 enquiry centres which give face-to-face advice to customers. HMRC considers that it will be able to improve service standards by using its staff more flexibly. It may need to put in additional resources, though, to avoid the kind of plummeting performance we have seen in the past
“Superb and almost unbearably charming, Her Majesty’s Royal Coven… expertly launches an exciting new trilogy." —The New York Times Book Review "Talk about a gut punch of a novel. …A provocative exploration of intersectional feminism, loyalty, gender and transphobia [that] invites readers into an intricately woven web of magic, friendship and power." —The Nerd Daily A Discovery of Witches meets The Craft in this epic fantasy about a group of childhood friends who are also witches. If you look hard enough at old photographs, we’re there in the background: healers in the trenches; Suffragettes; Bletchley Park oracles; land girls and resistance fighters. Why is it we help in times of crisis? We have a gift. We are stronger than Mundanes, plain and simple. At the dawn of their adolescence, on the eve of the summer solstice, four young girls--Helena, Leonie, Niamh and Elle--took the oath to join Her Majesty's Royal Coven, established by Queen Elizabeth I as a covert government department. Now, decades later, the witch community is still reeling from a civil war and Helena is the reigning High Priestess of the organization. Yet Helena is the only one of her friend group still enmeshed in the stale bureaucracy of HMRC. Elle is trying to pretend she's a normal housewife, and Niamh has become a country vet, using her powers to heal sick animals. In what Helena perceives as the deepest betrayal, Leonie has defected to start her own more inclusive and intersectional coven, Diaspora. And now Helena has a bigger problem. A young warlock of extraordinary capabilities has been captured by authorities and seems to threaten the very existence of HMRC. With conflicting beliefs over the best course of action, the four friends must decide where their loyalties lie: with preserving tradition, or doing what is right. Juno Dawson explores gender and the corrupting nature of power in a delightful and provocative story of magic and matriarchy, friendship and feminism. Dealing with all the aspects of contemporary womanhood, as well as being phenomenally powerful witches, Niamh, Helena, Leonie and Elle may have grown apart but they will always be bound by the sisterhood of the coven.
HMRC's action against tax avoiders continues to be unacceptably slow. The Liberty scheme, for example, began in 2005 and was closed down in 2009, but it has taken until 2014 to take this case to a tax tribunal. Up to £10 million of the total £400 million tax at stake may not be recoverable because in 30 cases HMRC failed to start inquiries into personal tax returns within the 12 month statutory deadline. HMRC should report on the progress it has achieved by using new powers granted by Parliament and show that it is using its existing powers with sufficient urgency. Recent changes to the UK tax regime have been challenged by international bodies like the OECD and European Commission as constituting 'harmful tax practices'. These changes make it easier for global companies to avoid paying tax in the jurisdictions where they make a profit. HM Treasury and HMRC should provide details of progress in identifying and addressing the ways that international tax structures are exploited, and set out the actual costs and benefits of recent changes to the UK's tax regime. It is amazing that HMRC made a £1.9 billion error when it established its baseline and set targets for its compliance work. This means HMRC has been overstating the extent to which its performance on compliance yield has improved and it inadvertently presented misleading information to Parliament. Astonishingly, this significant error in a key performance measure went undetected by HMRC's own system of governance and internal audit for three years
In pursuing unpaid tax, HMRC has not clearly demonstrated that it is on the side of the majority of taxpayers who pay their taxes in full. Last year the Department collected less tax in real terms than it managed to collect in 2011-12. This was despite the stated ambition to crack down on tax avoidance. The tax gap as defined by HMRC did not shrink, but in 2011-12 grew to £35 billion. Furthermore, this figure does not include all the tax revenue lost. HMRC pursues tax owed by the smaller businesses but seems to lose its nerve when it comes to mounting prosecutions against multinational corporations. It predicted that it would collect £3.12 billion unpaid tax from UK holders of Swiss bank accounts and this figure was built into budget estimates, but in 2013-14 it has so far secured just £440 million. HMRC aims to make the UK more attractive to business but the incentives to international corporations may also enable them to avoid tax. HMRC needs to strike the right balance between support and enforcement. The implementation of the Real Time Information system has been encouraging overall though some small businesses are continuing to struggle. It is of concern that HMRC is planning from April 2014 to fine companies even though some face continuing challenges. The successful implementation of Universal Credit depends on RTI continuing to work properly but the system does not have full disaster recovery arrangements. System failures could have serious consequences for payments to individuals
This new edition incorporates revised guidance from H.M Treasury which is designed to promote efficient policy development and resource allocation across government through the use of a thorough, long-term and analytically robust approach to the appraisal and evaluation of public service projects before significant funds are committed. It is the first edition to have been aided by a consultation process in order to ensure the guidance is clearer and more closely tailored to suit the needs of users.
In order to minimize the need for taxpayers to respond to multiple revenue agencies, some countries have integrated their revenue administrations, either by merging tax and customs administration, or unifying collection of tax and social contributions. This book examines the experience of 11 countries in doing so. Their experiences indicate that integrating collection entails modernizing the revenue administration and reducing contact between the tax office and taxpayers, thanks to the extensive use of ICT.
Tobacco smuggling represents a significant risk to revenues. It undermines initiatives to reduce smoking and it is linked to the activities of organised criminal gangs. HMRC estimates that duty not paid on tobacco smoked in the UK in 2010-11 resulted in revenue losses of around £1.9 billion. Some 9% of cigarettes and 38% of hand-rolling tobacco sold in the UK are estimated to be illicit, yet there were only 265 prosecutions for tobacco smuggling in 2012-13. HMRC's 2010 Spending Review settlement included £25 million over four years to invest in new initiatives to tackle tobacco smuggling. However HMRC was also required to find efficiency savings so total spending on HMRC's tobacco strategy in 2011-12 rose by only £3 million to £68.9 million and fell to £67.4 million in 2012-13. By the end of 2012-13, three of the five Spending Review-funded projects had yielded nothing and the Committee is not convinced that the Spending Review projects will deliver the £900 million benefit, in terms of revenue loss prevented, that HMRC now predicts they will achieve by March 2015. The Department has also failed to challenge UK tobacco manufacturers who turn a blind eye to the avoidance of UK tax by supplying more of their products to European countries than the legitimate market in those countries could possibly require. The tobacco then finds its way back into the UK market without tax being paid. The supply of some brands of hand-rolling tobacco to some countries in 2011 exceeded legitimate demand by 240%.
This is the ninth edition of John Tiley's major text on revenue law, covering the UK tax system, income tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax, as well as incorporating sections dealing with corporation tax, international and European tax, savings and charities. This new edition is fully revised and updated with the latest case law, statutory and other developments, including Finance Act 2019. The book is designed for law students taking the subject in the final year of their law degree, or for more advanced courses, and is intended to be of interest to all who enjoy tax law. Its purpose is not only to provide an account of the rules but also to include citation of the relevant literature from legal periodicals and some discussion of, or reference to, the background material in terms of policy, history or other countries' tax systems. Copy the URL below to read a 2021 supplement highlighting new developments since the book's publication in 2019: https://www.bloomsbury.com/media/2v1ej5vw/tileys-revenue-law-supplement-2021.pdf
The Draft Finance Bill 2013 (HL 139) evaluates the draft Finance Bill which, following detailed consultations based on the findings of an independent study group, includes proposals for a General Anti-Abuse Rule (GAAR), narrowly targeted at abusive transactions which fail a stringent 'double reasonableness' test. The provisions also include the formation of an Advisory Panel to agree guidance and give its opinion on the application of the double reasonableness test to a given set of tax arrangements. Most agree the narrow focus was appropriate. Some witnesses argued that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) should set up a clearance system to reduce uncertainty about where the GAAR would apply. Many witnesses were very concerned at the application of the GAAR to transactions involving inheritance tax planning. The Bill also includes an Annual Residential Property Tax Package (ARPT) which is part of a package of measures to address Stamp Duty Land Tax avoidance by
Much learning in government occurs after large projects, initiatives or crises. However, important learning should also take place routinely on a day-to-day basis, as teams and individuals carry out their work, or as a result of research and evaluations.