What does Bracknell think? PAYE mistake

My fat face is once again in the 'What Does Bracknell Think?' column of the Bracknell Standard.

 

The question asked was "The Government has admitted more than six million people have paid either too much or too little tax over the past year. Some people face paying back around £1,400 and some will even receive a rebate. The Inland Revenue says the money must be paid back within a year, is this fair as it is that organisation that has made the mistake?

 

My response published in the paper was;

 

Yet again a government computer system was not up to the job. In a way it's like a lottery waiting to see if you win or lose this week.

 

Bearing this in mind then it is tempting to say it is an Inland Revenue mistake therefore they must pay for their errors. But it is right that people pay their proper amount of tax and that refunds are made inline with this. At least it can be paid back over time. But I suspect if I get a bill for £1,400 I won't be very happy about it.

 

Please let me know what you think?

Tax is Taxing

Moira Stuart been on TV a lot lately telling us that tax doesn't have to be taxing. Well as someone who helps friends out with their tax I can easly come back and say to Moira. "Tax doesn't have to be taxing", but it bloodly well is!"

The web site is far from easy to use. If your filing company accounts or paying tax it's not joined up. I find the web site too be quite hard to use and to navigate.

When filing a self assessment why can't the web site tell you your previous payments and deduct these (I bet people miss this one and have it retuned to them much later in the year, why can't the website just fill in your tax payments, why can't it add it you PAYE? and why can't it simply say actual UK dividends received rather than without the tax credit, it's confusing.

You would suspect it would be fairly simple to link remittance data to returns based on the reference numbers. Billpay online payment system is not linked to the data HMRC hold about returns as its operated by Santander bank. As with many government systems, the HMRC systems appear to be developed separately and don’t seem to talk to one another or be linked in as much as they could be.

How comes when the Inland Revenue make a mistake its seems so hard to get the money back or get them to admit it?

Also answer the phone please see here. Research found that 43% of the 103 million calls went unanswered last year. HMRC's has 31 contact centres which have 10,500 full-time staff at a cost of £233m. So its not as if they dont have the resource.

I really dont mind paying tax but please make it simpler?