Practitioners will be interested to learn that HMRC is “focused on delivering a trusted, modern tax and customs service that makes it easier to pay tax and harder to get it wrong.”
Leaving aside the misnomer that taxpayers are customers, in HMRC’s performance update for October to December 2023 they further assert:
“In financial year 2022 to 2023 we collected £788.8 billion – an increase of 10.2% on the previous year – money which is spent by the government on schools, the NHS, police and other essential services we all rely on.
“We’ve achieved a long-term reduction in the UK’s tax gap from 7.5% in 2005 to 2006 to 4.8% in 2021 to 2022. This means we bring in more than 95% of the tax that is due. It costs us just half a penny to collect every pound of tax revenue.
“In 2022 to 2023, our compliance work secured £34 billion of tax revenue that would otherwise have been lost to the Exchequer through error, fraud and other forms of non-compliance.
“We’re developing and enhancing our digital services to give customers quicker and easier ways to deal with their tax and customs affairs and reduce the cost to the public purse of administering the system.”
Does this smack of shining shoes with holes in the soles?
MTD, the flagship endeavour to digitise tax reporting and collection continues to be dogged by delays. Communicating with HMRC is bogged down by lengthy recorded preambles and long waiting times.
Perhaps for the next quarter, HMRC should aim for a more objective performance review. There must be many practitioners who would be willing to put pen to paper; for a suitable fee of course.
#hmrcperformance #taxandcustomsservice #paytax #taxpayers
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