AMATEURS AT THE TAX OFFICE ...

Why on Earth does everything in this country have to be so complex?

First issue that I can remember was the Child Support Agency. It was set up in the 90s (with huge support from a public that was sick to the back teeth of picking up the bill for lads whose idea of a good time was a quick one on and Friday night, and whose idea of a bad time was any resultant kind of reduction in their beer, cars and clothes budget). But it was made so complex, and made so many errors, that in the end the public was sick to the back teeth of it.

Then there was the (again) well meaning child tax credits. No one, not matter how anti Labour could say that it wasn’t a good idea to target the very limited amount of money on the poorest. It was of course, as was family tax credit, a subsidy to employers, and thus to jobs. But once again it was so complex that it caused more grief than it gave comfort, and people were terrified of it, lest there be an over payment, which there frequently was, and it be taken back.

Now it’s the PAYE system. It seems that few in the Revenue really understood much of what they were doing. It appears that there is likely to be an overhaul of the way that tax is calculated which probably means that once completed, no one will understand what they are doing; the computers won’t be able to cope with it and the whole system will collapse.

This latest mess means that the wrong tax has been taken from around 1.4 million people. Some have paid too much, some too little. Those who have overpaid will receive an average rebate of just over £400 which will be paid to them by cheque.

Those who have been underpaying (around 1.4 million) will, have to pay money back. The amount will be taken in installments from their pay. The average amount is likely to be around £1200 and this will be taken at about £100 a month. Tax codes for next year will be altered to ensure the money is recouped over a year. Nippy at a time when prices are likely to rise steeply and salaries are likely to be static unless you are among the top earners..

Knowing my luck, and based on my past experience with HMIR, I will get a bill for 3 times my annual income and they will refuse to accept that they could possibly be wrong. The last debacle with them took enough phone calls to pay the BT chairman’s bonus.

The coalition has blamed the labour government, not unreasonably since they were in charge during the period when it happened.


According to the Daily Telegraph a Treasury source said: “A decade of meddling and intervening made the tax affairs of millions of families and businesses across the UK extremely complicated.”

So no bias there from the Treasury!

Ministers say that the Government is now using a computer system which can match taxpayers’ records up automatically and make sure the right amount of tax has been paid. So...we now have a government computer that does what it’s supposed to do......?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ..... when will they lose all the discs then?

Pic: Clever crest concocted by mehrdad in light of IR,s lost cds back in 2007. The crest is changed to include a cd carried by the lion and the unicorn under the crown and the text changed from the original "Dieu et mon droit" (God and my right) to "Deux cds sont perdus" (two cds have been lost). It is copyright www.aref.adib.com, and I hope they will excuse my non-commercial use of it. It sums the department up pretty well.