HMRC’s digital woes – as they say, “you couldn’t make it up”.
Source: rsmuk.com, 5th April 2017 (aka Baker Tilly)
“Three critical HMRC digital projects are running into problems, the “Making Tax Digital project”, the “Customs Declaration System” and HMRC’s tax return filing software for 2016/17.
What can be done about this? Two immediate suggestions are desperately obvious.
First, give HMRC more money to do its job properly. Perversely, far from being increased, HMRC’s annual budget is being reduced from £3.6 billion in 2016/17 to £2.9 billion in 2019/20.
Second, ensure that HMRC has sufficient, experienced IT experts to deliver these projects. But here’s the rub. Because of HMRC’s approach to IR35, it’s reported that HMRC is about to tax contractors who use personal service companies as if they were permanent employees of HMRC. And guess what? The very IT experts on whom HMRC relies are quitting rather than take a cut in their after-tax pay.
As they say, you couldn’t make it up.”
April 10, 2017 at 8:29 am
If only they could outsource this work to entities from some sort of economic union, whereby there would be qualified staff, lower costs and almost no taxes.
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