Abolish HMRC – and bring in the little old ladies
Posted on September 9, 2010In my first few days at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the HMRC data loss scandal broke. An agency that compels people to hand over their money and their personal details had exposed a horrific inability to fulfil its responsibilities to the public.
And now they’ve done it again. The announcement that 5.7 million people were taxed incorrectly, and at least 1.4 million are left facing huge bills to repay, shows that if HMRC has changed at all it has gone from embarassingly mediocre to irretrievably catastrophic.
The one redeeming feature of the taxman’s behaviour when they lost all that personal data was that its Chairman, Paul Gray, resigned as soon as the scandal came to light (though that was swiftly tempered when we found out how much he was being paid to leave). This time, the opposite happened – Dave Hartnett, HMRC’s permanent secretary for tax, swanned about at the weekend saying “we didn’t get it wrong” (which they clearly did) and there was therefore no need to apologise (which there obviously was).
Under pressure from the Treasury, Hartnett has now changed his tune and said sorry. But sorry is not enough – numerous senior heads must roll for this appalling and repeated incompetence.
The people deserve to see blood, the people responsible deserve the axe and HMRC itself a proper bloodletting if it is ever to recover. HMRC’s boss should get out his chopping block, or the Chancellor should do it – and sack him too.
In the short term, the tax authorities need a kick up the backside. In the long term, the only solution to the continued failure to administer the tax system properly is vastly simplifying our taxes. If we had simple, flat taxation there would be almost no need for an HMRC at all – people could work out their own taxes and instead of this blundering behemoth all we would require would be a few little old ladies to open the envelopes and cash the cheques.
They couldn’t be any less competent than the current bunch, and they would have a lot fewer ways in which they could ruin people’s lives.
Tags: Data Loss, George Osborne, Heads Must Roll, HMRC, Incompetence, Paul Gray, Tax, TaxPayers' Alliance
Categories: Opinion, Politics, Public spending
Since all taxation is theft. This is daylight robbery with impunity.
13.09.2010 16:52
Please be fair to HMRC,we cant expect them to sort out millions of tax returns as well as
stopping thousands of old dears coming through the ports with Benson & Hedges,be fair.
13.09.2010 18:45
HMRC represent everything that is wrong with this country. Their draconian powers makes them arrogant. They bully small businesses, yet do ‘deals’ with big companies. Its not for us to be fair to HMRC, but for them to learn that they are serving the public. They are acting as if they are the masters when they are not. The whole shambolic system needs to be burnt to the ground and these un-Civil Serpants must be stopped.
02.02.2011 13:25