I am not in the least bit shocked to find that, according to the Public Accounts Committee, HMRC is “still failing UK taxpayers.” It is doing a cracking job in allowing tax evaders to get away with industrial levels of evasion. I experienced it myself when receiving a demand for so called underpaid tax, when there was no such thing.”In the first half of 2015″, adds the committee, “HMRC contact centres answered only half of calls, and only 39% within five minutes.” 39% got through that quickly? My last call took me a mere 90 minutes to get through which cost me £11 in an additional phone bill. That’s fair, isn’t it?
It is believed that a minimum of 3600 people hide money in Switzerland, huge sums too, but we all know that HMRC’s overwhelming priority is for easy hits. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the demands they have sent to me, false, every one, have been more like threats. As I am currently employed in a job that pays more than the minimum wage but less than the living wage; the inspectors, or rather their managers, must be rubbing their hands together at retrieving a few hundred quid. “We’ll bloody get him. He won’t have any of those Fancy Dan accountants on what he earns. Don’t worry about chasing a tax dodging billionaire. What he gets away with he can give to the Tory Party to have dinner with David Cameron.”
HMRC said they had taken on an additional 3000 staff to deal with the matter so that’s all right then, isn’t it? Well, no, not since 11000 jobs have already disappeared in HMRC. I am no mathematician, but, at a guess, that’s a net loss of 8000. In other words, part of the problem will be of HMRC’s own making, or rather the government’s making. No way is it the staff’s fault. HMRC staff are some of the most hardworking public servants in the land and they have to be, what with the ever-growing workload with which they are having to deal. But, as ever, the government wheels out endless statistics to “prove” what a great job they,not the staff, are doing.
The government describes the shambles as “customer service issues” which they are dealing with. Later this month, George Osborne will be further “dealing with” the issues with a further devastating cut to HMRC staff numbers. And when the service gets even worse, you know whose fault it will be: the staff.
