With tougher penalties, HMRC increasingly mislaying papers and most now filing online, how can HMRC continue to justify not providing receipts for hand-delivered paper returns – often by the most vulnerable?

Then and now

In December 2005, without prior consultation, HMRC announced that their Enquiry Centres would no longer issue receipts for hand-delivered tax returns – a change in policy which impacted most on the unrepresented.

Times have moved fast in the tax world and the 2005 landscape was quite different from the one we see today. The balance has switched from the majority filing tax returns on paper to most filing online, with those left using the paper forms mainly comprising unrepresented taxpayers – often those who are on low incomes and ‘digitally excluded’.

Since 2005 the tax charities have been disturbed to see the distress which can be caused to the unrepresented by HMRC’s policy not to issue receipts for tax returns hand-delivered to their Enquiry Centres. LITRG has always considered that the change in policy at that time was unfair and an over-reaction to the tendency of some agents to hand-deliver large numbers of returns close to the deadline.

The problem

If a hand-delivered return is mislaid within HMRC, resulting in the issue of a non-filing penalty, the burden of proof is very difficult for an individual taxpayer to overcome. The problem is now compounded by a fiercer tax penalty regime and increasing prevalence of papers being lost within HMRC following the move from ‘local tax offices’ to a more centralised system.
 
We recognise that HMRC wish to make everyone file online (where an immediate receipt is given), but there are many barriers in the way of the British public in achieving that aim. Self-assessment filing is not just demanded of the rich; indeed someone who subsists on only the state pension is often forced to render a self-assessment return.

A simple request

Many pensioners are of course not at the forefront of the e-revolution. So when they conscientiously call in at an HMRC Enquiry Centre to deliver their paper tax return you would think common sense would overcome rules (established for another purpose) when they ask for some evidence of receipt to give them peace of mind. This would be a small but important gesture from a Department which aims to ‘understand our customers and their needs’.

The law requires HMRC to issue a receipt if they remove books or records from taxpayer premises, and similarly they have to provide a tax payment receipt on request. Furthermore, they used to have equipment at Enquiry Centres to read bar-coded tax returns so could this not be resurrected at little effort or expense to provide automated receipts? Or could returns which are, after all, designed to be machine-read not be scanned at the point of delivery to avoid them being lost?

We want to see a change of practice and before the 31 October self-assessment paper filing peak. Otherwise, in fairness, this new government should institute some statutory backing for what is only reasonable customer service.

Article Added Friday, 06 August 2010 | 1478 Hits

Your attention is drawn to the disclaimer on this site, which applies to the content in this section.