When I see anything to do with the taxman I give it a glance. PAFC having been threatened with extinction by HMRC........I quote various news outlets........ "A committee of MP's has criticised "cosy" deals between HM Revenue & Customs and big Businesses. £25 billion of outstanding tax potentially owed by big Companies. A spokesman for HMRC hit back,saying the MP's were simply wrong"...end of quotes. PAFC owed not even pocket money compared with the likes of big business...........maybe they are chasing the likes of PAFC because we have no clout compared with the big boys.
Since when was it not ever thus plymborn but that does not make PAFC right and the taxman wrong for chasing them. I received a bill from HMRC myself not a few weeks ago. I apparently owed them £800 but I didn't really have the faintest idea why as mine is PAYE. When I spoke to them they said that one of my pension payers had given me the wrong tax code deduction. They would re-issue the code to them and I would then start paying the right amount. Given this was a last tax year bill it became obvious that I have had another 6 months worth of wrong code so the bill is no longer £800 but £1200. Notice the "they would issue" rather than "had already issued" the tax code and if I had not rung then it would presumably have carried on till the end of the year despite the bill. I gave it a week and rang my pension payer. They tell me that they receive codes electronically and if one was received that they could not identify it was returned in the same way for the Taxman to look at and amend whatever info was incorrect for the right person to be identified. In my case no code was received until the new one just issued. So, through no fault of mine whatsoever I will be paying back £100 per month to clear the debt over the next financial year. I appealed the day of my phone call to my pension payer. That was several weeks ago and I have heard absolutely didly squat from them since. Now, I have no dispute that the wrong code was either issued or applied and I would have been paying more in tax but I do absolutely dispute that I had any dealings in the error being made. Maybe I should have realised although I am not sure how. Bare in mind my circumstances with my mother over that period and the daily visits and care my wife and I provided for her and the emotion of watching her basically die. Therefore even if I should have noticed something was not right there are mitigating circumstances for missing it. Will I get a favourable answer???? What do you reckon. I heard the above news today and thought that was where I went wrong. I should have taken them out for a meal which would have cost me say £100. It would have saved me £1100 in the long run so would have been a bargain. What gets me about the story is the absolute arrogance of the organisation. If I had been taken out for a meal by a Contractor when discussing hiring a Service when I worked I would have been sacked on the spot. If I had gone out for a meal with a Tenant who owed arrears of rent to discuss a waiver I would have been sacked on the spot. This is a typical rule for the rich and rule for the poorer in society story. The more you have the more you get away with and if this Government lets this story lie and does nothing about it then they are as corrupt as the system themselves. I pay my taxes and have always paid my taxes and have never earned anywhere near a fraction of what these companies have written off it seems. I listened to Radio 5 today and they had people calling in with their stories and experiences of the Tax Department. Some of these stories, if true of course as they are not substantiated, were appaulling and the main theme was the nature of the attitude of the tax people when dealing with people who in the main had done very little wrong. This of course is the other arm of the Customs and I think it must be trained into them how to behave and treat people when they start the job because they are just as bad.
You should have invested your £1,100 with BIL in Gib Sensible, that would have given them £1,000 more than they had!. Mind you, I always had an inkling that you were a Tax Dodger - shame on you
I doubt that it is HMRC taking a lenient stance. These corporations all have numerous accountants & lawyers who can identify and advise on Tax loop-holes that restrict HMRC's ability to get the money from them. We were just unlucky that the best accountant we had was Stapleton and I personally believe he got his degree as a prize on the back of a crisp packet. So we were never going to get round it. As it is a comment made by a commitee of MP's (which, may contain members...) who, for years, abused and exploited the expenses system, I would be very wary of listening to them complaining about HMRC not doing their job properly.
As usual, I'm afraid this is MP's talking out of their ........ [insert your selected orifice here]. I heard the chairwoman of the select committee Margaret Hodge on the radio. Her big point was that there was "too little separation between those negotiating deals and those authorising them" i.e. those at the top in HMRC should not be involved in negotiating themselves but merely either authorise or refuse proposed settlements at the end of what may be a very long and costly process. I can tell you one thing that business people hate, loathe and detest with a passion is being put in the position of either negotiating with the monkey and not the organ grinder or having to do the same themselves by those above them. There is nothing worse than sitting down with someone for hours on end, thinking you've got to an agreement and then have the other party say "I'll just have to ring So And So to see if he's OK with this". It just shows how far divorced MP's are from the real world.
What has negotiating got to do with anything????? You either owe something or you don't as far as I can see. If the rules state you pay this tax or that tax then that rule is set for all and not just for some who cannot afford to pay a highly qualified person to argue. Like millions of people I am on the PAYE system. We all get a code number which tells us we can have X amount free of tax and thereafter pay tax on the whole. There is no negotiation of that it just is. Should we all opt out of PAYE and spend the next year telling the Tax Office we don't owe anything and offer a fraction. This is big business getting away with things ordinary folks cannot and public employees having dinner with "the enemy" and coming to "agreements". Are you all saying the dinning out never happened? It doesn't matter in this instance what MP's may or may not have done in the past with expenses. Just because a number were on the take does not simply mean they are not right about this subject by default. There should not be a case of anyone having to negotiate a figure or having to get a figure authorised. The tax should be paid as it is intended to be collected and should not be up for negotiation. The one constant theme from you notdistant regarding football clubs and the taxman is "this is our money". Just because this is big business and nothing to do with football does not make it any less "our money" and there are no double standards that should apply to it's collection.
