Despite the taxman’s award-winning mantra that ‘tax doesn’t have to be taxing,’ four out of ten people on his books are struggling to fill in their self-assessment forms.
Admirably though almost 70% of taxpayers take on the task themselves, refusing to pay an accountant to complete their annual return, unlike the mantra’s speaker Adam Hart Davies.
But for 42% of taxpayers, responding to pollsters commissioned by the CIOT, the design of the SA form makes it “fairly” or “very” difficult to tell if they are paying the right amount of tax.
Even the two tax calculation guides authored by HMRC to assist taxpayers are overly “complicated,” according to John Cullinane, president of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
“The forms and guides reflect how complex the UK tax system is,” Mr Cullinane said in a statement.
“In order to simplify the SA forms and guides one first needs to make the system simpler and clearer.
“Without this any move to making the forms ‘easier’ could in fact lead to people getting their tax return wrong.”
His comments come after the process of self-assessment was called into question by a mainstream press editorial that claimed the system lends itself to overzealous tax inspectors.
A recent leader in The Daily Telegraph said that the introduction of the system has left tax inspectors with little to do, prompting them to keep coming up with new ways to justify their salaries.
The interpretation came on the back of new figures reported to show that random tax probes, of which there are six types, cost more than £1m to conduct but recover less than £665,000.
In other words officials’ enquiries, such as contacting taxpayers by telephone, letter or in person to discuss aspects of their tax affairs, cost the authority £1 for every 62p recovered.
The revelation coincides with figures from the Public and Commercial Services Union, which reportedly show that a backlog of unanswered mail is building up at tax offices across the UK.
HMRC managers have disputed the resulting claim that the pile of mail towers 1.5million items high, which the union blamed on so-called ‘lean’ ways of working and low staff morale.
Internal targets to reduce staff head count, as spelt out under government reviews, were also cited as hitting morale in the authority’s offices.
May 16, 2007
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