Tax Announcements

The latest staff survey for HMRC has been quietly published on the HMRC website.

It shows that HMRC now come bottom in more categories than any other government department surveyed.

As the Low Income Tax Reform Group (LITRG) predicted a year ago, the decline in HMRC staff morale has been bad for low-income customers who depend upon such staff getting things right. This last year has indeed seen a deterioration of service in many areas while the latest survey of 50,000 staff shows that the decline in morale is continuing and, indeed, accelerating.

The figures below give an inkling as to why this might be so.

The latest survey

The following are a few of the key statistics highlighted by LITRG, where HMRC results were the worst out of the 11 departments. Only:

11% feel that HMRC is well-managed
17% would recommend HMRC as a great place to work
24% think learning and development is adequate
12% thought HMRC energised them to go the extra mile
22% thought talent was recognised
9% think that when changes are made they are for the better
11% think change is managed well
51% felt that they had the tools and equipment needed to do the job

HMRC did come top in two categories; being trained in data handling and security and being aware of HMRC processes.

It could be argued that such a poor result merely shows the effects of the recession and cut-backs in the Civil Service generally. But that alone does not explain HMRC’s poor performance when compared with the 10 other government departments surveyed.

The relevance for customers

HMRC came 9th out of the 11 departments in striving to serve their customers better. But this result may be explained by the fact that 94% of HMRC staff believe that there are too many approval processes for routine decisions and very few believe that a positive result will occur at the end of any improvement process.

Contented, motivated, trained, and trusted staff do serve their customers better.

A year ago, LITRG recommended a moratorium on job losses and a real focus on the customer. Neither happened, so is it any wonder that the HMRC morale is really rock-bottom now?

LITRG

LITRG is a group of like minded people who joined together with the support and encouragement of the Chartered Institute of Taxation to give a voice to those people on low incomes who battle against the complexity of the tax/benefits systems.

Contact Name: John Andrews (0844 579 6700 Fax 0844 579 6701)

The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) welcomes the release by HMRC of some of the details of the forthcoming New Disclosure Opportunity (NDO).

The NDO, announced by the Chancellor in the 2009 Budget, will encourage taxpayers with undisclosed income from an offshore account to disclose their income and suffer a limited penalty.

The CIOT, together with other representative bodies, is working with HMRC with the intention of making the NDO work as effectively and efficiently as possible. The Institute has a number of concerns regarding the initial proposals and understands that these are currently being considered by HMRC as the plans are refined.

Gary Ashford, Chairman of the CIOT’s Management of Taxes Sub-Committee, says: "Those people who have not declared offshore income have evaded tax and we do not condone tax evasion in any way. However, it makes every sense to help such people regularise their tax affairs, particularly as many will have fallen foul of the law through mistake or misunderstanding."

The NDO has been welcomed by the CIOT who have applauded the advance notice of the scheme. The CIOT hopes that this will lead to further publicity from HMRC once the scheme is up and running and potential disclosers have the opportunity to disclose.

Gary Ashford continues: "We are pleased that a number of our recommendations have been accepted, including that the flat rate penalty for those who had no previous invitation to disclose should be 10% in line with the previous Offshore Disclosure Facility (ODF) and that, importantly, tax advisers will be able to file online on behalf of clients."