Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has again come under fire, this time being accused on “ineptitude” by the Taxpayers Alliance following revelations that HMRC have written off a whopping £27.4billion in the last five years.
This matter has been addressed in the Taxpayers Alliance report, entitled “How the taxman loses billions ever year”. These figures are especially worrying as they can be seen as a direct reason for HMRC’s especially aggressive recent approaches.
Over the past couple of years a series of errors by HMRC have been documented, errors which inevitably led to woe for UK taxpayers. The report claims that these ‘blunders’ are too common and signify “ineptitude and bad service”.
This comes at a time when HMRC have been accused of being too “cosy” with huge corporations, while harshly chasing, many times in error, regular citizens, UK expats and even vulnerable members of society such as elderly pensioners.
For a while now some quarters of society have been calling for a reform of the current tax system, and Matthew Sinclair, director of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, agrees: ‘It is ludicrous that our complex and unwieldy tax system means the taxman gives up on billions every year. Taxes are a challenge to administer and a burden on families and we need systematic reform to produce a simpler tax code. Some of this uncollected tax will be down to the recession, but there is clearly a long-term problem as well. Tax shouldn’t be so taxing that even HMRC cannot keep on top of it.”