Tag: hmrc
Had a wicked thought last night. Think it belongs on this blog as it made me smile!
HMRC have said that they intend to run a pilot exercise to collate Real Time Information from volunteer employers in April 2012. Mandatory use of RTI for large employers will start from April 2013.
How about HMRC itself volunteers for the pilot re its own payroll? And taking that a stage further, how about if MPs were also included in this experiment?!
Sean Locke was the comic turn before the awards were announced last night. Before moving into his more mainstream material he shared some topical tax related thoughts including:
This is the 11th year of the awards – if you don’t count the 3 years we didn’t declare.
Good to see HMRC have a table here tonight. It’s easy to see which one it is as all the waiters are wearing balaclavas.
I told some friends I’d got this gig and they reckoned tax advisers would all be boring. But you’re not. I’ve met a few tonight. One even showed me his favourite receipts.
A father walks into a restaurant with his young son..
He gives the young boy three 10p coins to play with to keep him occupied.
Suddenly, the boy starts choking and going blue in the face….
The father realises the boy has swallowed the coins and starts slapping him on the back..
The boy coughs up 2 of the 10p’s but is still choking.
Looking at his son, the father is panicking, shouting for help.
A well dressed, attractive, and serious looking woman, in a blue business suit is sitting at a coffee bar reading a newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee. At the sound of the commotion, she looks up, puts her coffee cup down, neatly folds the newspaper, places it on the counter, gets up from her seat and makes her way, unhurried, across the restaurant.
Reaching the boy, the woman carefully pulls down his pants; takes hold of the boy’s testicles and starts to squeeze and twist, gently at first and then ever so firmly… tighter and tighter !!!
After a few seconds the boy convulses violently and coughs up the last of the 10ps, which the woman deftly catches in her free hand.
Releasing the boy’s testicles, the woman hands the coin to the father and walks back to her seat at the coffee bar without saying a word.
As soon as he is sure that his son has suffered no ill effects, the father rushes over to the woman and starts thanking her saying, “I’ve never seen anybody do anything like that before, it was fantastic. Are you a doctor? “
‘No,’ the woman replied.
I’m a tax inspector at HMRC…’
My thanks to Alan Phillips of Phillips Associates for passing this on.
Just completed online tax return, have overpaid by 5 pence – heartwarming feeling that I am helping solve the government deficit
@sandywalkington
About to disprove the slogan “tax doesn’t have to be taxing”… Now where are all those things I put in a safe place in may 2009
@marklangdon
Back to the tax return. Apologies in advance for any shouting, screaming, swearing and throwing stuff.
@hmhunt
Me: “You must be run off your feet this time of year.” Girl in HMRC Tax Helpline call centre: “Ohh, it’s enough to drive you to drink.”
@BigglesZX
Two bills from HMRC today, both demanding I pay different amounts. I wanted to spend all day on hold tho, so it’s cool. STAB. STAB. STAB.
@PoppyD
I spoke to a lovely lady from HMRC today, its always lovley when someone tells you to put a bill in the bin though!
@CandyHandfuls
Been on the phone to HMRC for 40 minutes, great phone call and really productive – ive listened to every song on their waiting album list
@mattadams86
I haven’t seen a single “Tax doesn’t have to be taxing” ad this year (thankfully). Are HMRC cutting back on marketing?
@MikeOrmond
Great to no longer feel pang of guilt when I drive past Moira’s face on billboards warning of 31 Jan tax return deadline. Filed mine last wk
@stevelivingston
With thanks to Daniel from Taxation magazine for flagging these.
Long before HMRC introduced a ‘time to pay’ system through the Business Payment Support Service, Inspectors kept track of the more extreme excuses given for late payment.
My heart went out to the taxpayer with the best reason I ever heard. He asked for time to pay because:
“Just recently the drains were blocked and the bungalow was flooded, We had 6,000 gallons of effluent all over the inside and out.Please consider all the things we’ve been through.”
A few weeks after Bernie died his sister, Susie, intercepted a letter sent to him by HMRC. It was a request for a tax return. Susie took the letter to her accountant who, after asking a few questions, suggested she reply as follows and pp the letter ‘from Bernie (deceased)’:
One of the advantages of having died is that there is no tax in heaven. It’s a beautiful place. When I was alive I paid tax through the PAYE system and had not had any direct dealings with the taxman for many years. I can’t say I’m that fussed about the outstanding return as I had no unearned income and left very little in the way of an inheritance for my sole living relative, my sister. Also, such matters seem so mundane since my recent demise. I might add that I have not yet met anyone from HMRC up here!
Love the title of this new book by John W O’Sullivan, a former tax inspector. He spent twenty years working for HMRC investigating serious tax evasion and fraud throughout the West Midlands and Central Wales.
Synopsis:
Tax dodging: more popular than football, more subtle than chess, and played by millions. Some know the rules of the game, a few have some idea of the tactics, but what do they know of their faceless opponents in the distant computer centres and Special Compliance offices?
In this ‘partial, prejudiced and jaundiced overview’, a former Senior Inspector of Taxes presents a frank insider’s view of a working life in taxes. With humour, relevance and a refreshing minimum of technical jargon, he casts an ironic eye on the professional activities and private passions of Dobson, one of the ‘odious agents of the Income Tax’. Dobson’s investigations uncover the professional fouls, dirty tricks and shady practices of those for whom tax dodging means anything from modest evasion to criminal fraud: both illegal, of limited effectiveness, and with serious consequences if detected.
Last week guidance was published explaining how HMRC intend to apply the law that now allows them to publish the details of tax evaders.
George Bull of Baker Tilly has christened the concept TAXBOs. He notes the irony of this as ASBOs are now on their way out…..
It could catch on – although I note that Barry Hutton in South Africa got their first with his accountancy practice, Taxbo Services which was established in 1988.
On Radio 4′s The Now Show, Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis recently suggested (series 31 episode 3) that:
“To the British, defrauding the DSS is a crime; defrauding HMRC is more of a sport.”
To highlight the difference in approach they referenced the two separate online forms at Direct.gov.uk
“The tax evasion hotline information report form and the ‘report a benefit thief online form“.
And they then compared aspects of the two forms:
“When grassing up the suspected villain, the tax fraud form asks you to provide approximate age, national insurance number and brief description of the person. The benefit fraud form asks you for: ethnic group, their build, their eye colour, eye wear, hair colour, hair type. It then gives you a separate menu of hair type options which include: afro, bald, dirty, dreadlocks, greasy, long, mohican, pony tail. All the classic hairstyles of the potentially criminal. And, brilliantly, ‘wig’. That’s right, if you’re living next door to a toupee’d ethnic with glasses, get online now.”
Large firm
Medium sized firm
Small firm
Individual awards
Any others?
