Taxman ignored 44 million calls

Taxman ignored 44 million calls

HM Revenue and Customs failed to answer about 44 million calls last year, the Whitehall spending watchdog has disclosed.

The National Audit Office (NAO) described the performance of HMRC's 31 customer "contact centres" during the course of 2008-09 as "unacceptable".

Despite employing the equivalent of 10,500 full-time staff at the centres at a cost of £233 million, HMRC still failed to pick up 43% of the 103 million calls it received during the year.

During the busiest periods - such as the tax credit renewals peak in July - just one in three calls (33%) was actually answered.

Callers who did get through had to wait an average two minutes for a reply - or almost four minutes if they were ringing at peak times.

That contrasted with best practice in the private sector where the target is for 90% of all calls to be picked up within 10 seconds.

Although the latest figures for the first half of 2009-10 have shown some improvement by HMRC, the NAO said that more than one in four calls - 27% - were still not getting a reply.

In the private sector, the benchmark is that no more than 10% of calls should go unanswered.

Benefits Helpline

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Childcare Warning to Parents'.

Childcare Warning to Parents'.

Under recent changes to the law in England some providers of childcare who were approved for tax credits under the old rules must now meet new registration requirements.

Parents should now check whether their providers are still registered under the new rules. If they continue to claim tax credits on childcare costs paid to unregistered providers, they could be left with large overpayments and possibly even penalties.

Low Income Tax reform Group.

Tax Credits Disputes - A Ray of Hope

Tax credits disputes - a ray of hope (25-09-2009)

Over the last few years, unacceptable delays, poorly written responses, wrong explanations and sometimes no reply at all have been common experiences for users of the tax credit dispute process.

We have been at the forefront of calling for change. We therefore welcome HMRC’s decision to set up a new team to deal with correspondence from organisations offering free advice to claimants.

Low Incomes Tax Reform Group.

Help For Working Tax Credit Claimants in the Recession

Help for working tax credit claimants in the recession (16-09-2009)

When people lose their jobs or have their hours reduced there are tax credit rules which mean that valuable tax credit payments are not withdrawn immediately.

From August this year these rules have been amended to make them apply to more people.

Low Incomes Tax reform Group.

'Help With Tax Credit Overpayments

Help with tax credit overpayments(18-09-2009)

A new guide written for the man or woman in the street aimed at enabling them to challenge tax credit overpayments is published today.

LITRG, (Low Incomes Tax Refom Group), has written the guide to help claimants through the complexities of fighting a tax credits overpayment decision and to enable them to decide how to fight and how to find extra help.

Call for Tax Credit overpayments over 4 years old to be written-off

Citizens Advice are starting a national campaign for all Tax Credit overpayments over 4 years old to be written-off. Today, Tax Credit Casualties have issued the Media Release shown below.

What can you do to help? Just forward this media release to your local newspapers - these are the papers that we don't have on our list. The more publicity we can generate, the more chance we have of succeeding. This is YOUR campaign, and it's important that everyone join in if we are going to be successful.

Please also send a copy to your MP - we aren't allowed to 'spam' them, but you, as their constituents, can make them aware of things! Let's - every one of us - do what we can to get this vile system changed!Thanks.Tax Credit Casualties.

Tax Credit Casualties Support Citizens Advice

Tax Credit Debt Write-Off' Campaign Sign Here, Sign Now!!!


The latest Tax Credit statistics, quietly released by HMRC, show a shock increase of overpayment bills for poverty stricken families. The official figures for 2007/08 show that over £940 million will be clawed back from almost 1.34 million of the UK's poorest families, plunging them even deeper below the poverty line.

One in five Tax Credit claims are now overpaid each year, leaving struggling families in dispair about how they are going to survive when HMRC claw back the money. Once again, a measure that was supposed to bring millions of children out of poverty is having exactly the opposite effect, as the very poorest families struggle to repay their Government imposed debt.

Citizens Advice is calling for old tax credit debts, dating back more than four years, to be written-off. It is taking part in a national campaign to ask the Government to wipe the slate clean, reduce hardship for families on low incomes and restore confidence in the system.

The award-winning voluntary organization Tax Credit Casualties (TCC) have campaigned for an overpayment amnesty since 2005, and welcomes the call by Citizens Advice for all tax credit overpayment bills, served to honest claimants during 2003-05, to be written-off.

Despite the good intentions behind the Tax Credit system, TCC are deeply concerned about the hardship and distress caused by the recovery of Tax Credits year on year since the scheme began in 2003, with claimant poverty compounded by the recession. Non-fraudulent overpayments must be written off.

It damages public confidence in our leaders when MPs defend excessive expenses, “home-flips” and mortgage irregularities as 'accidents' whilst ordinary, hardworking citizens suffer grave injustices in the “guilty until proven innocent” culture the Treasury adopts towards overpayment victims. Without an Amnesty, costly overpayment disputes will continue to swamp HM Revenue and Customs indefinitely. Enforced recovery is neither just nor economical.

The public has lost confidence in tax credits, and trust must be restored. Recent reports suggest that a massive £4.24 billion available to Tax Credit claimants is not collected each year – more than enough to fund a full write-off. Costs saved in pursuing the innocently indebted can be redirected to system overhaul. A reliable system will restore public confidence far better than costly campaigns to promote take-up.

HMRC has seen huge data losses, radical structural reorganization, and a huge backlog of unopened post and complaints. Chasing the poorest families to recover non-fraudulent overpayments only detracts from urgent work in creating a safer, fairer system.

Parliamentary Ombudsman Ann Abraham recommended a write-off all overpayments resulting from official errors, something the Government has continually ignored.

This call has been backed by the Child Poverty Action Group, Royal College of Nursing, Low Incomes Tax Reform Group and cross-party MPs. UNISON has supported Motion 100 urging a Government amnesty on the claw back of overpaid Tax Credits. The two-way link between poverty and mental health cannot be ignored, with poverty and mental distress bringing huge social and welfare costs.

Please support Citizens Advice and Tax Credit Casualties in this campaign for a write off of non-fradulent overpayments. The poorest families in the UK need this Amnesty.

Urgently.

********************* End of Media Release **************************

Tell the Labour Party you support change. Vote now!!!

'Justice is an Amnesty' campaign right into the Labour Party parlour, via their 'LabourSpace' website.

What is LabourSpace? Full details can be found on their site, but in their own words:=

"Labourspace lets you quickly and easily set up a campaign and share your ideas with the Labourspace community. If you start a campaign which gains the most popular support your ideas will be bought to the attention of senior Labour politicians - your campaign could give you the opportunity to change the world!

You'll win if you have the idea with the highest net support (supporters - detractors).
All you need is to get the most support for your idea - it's all about people power really!"

No matter how you feel about the Government, this represents a fantastic opportunity to tell the Labour Party, as a whole, how we feel about Tax Credit overpayments. Not the Government itself, but the political party that funds their election campaigns and of which they are all members. So this is a whole new approach, and one with a tremendous amount of potential.

What do we need everyone to do? Easy. Click on the link to our LabourSpace campaign page, below, register on the site, and vote for our 'Justice is an Amnesty' campaign.
CLICK HERE: http://www.labourspace.com/view_campaign?CampaignId=125

(Look for the Tumbs Up at the very top right of the page and vote, you need to register first)

Then ask everyone you know to do the same, because this affects everyone who claims Tax Credits. If they haven't had an overpayment yet, it's only a matter of time.

What Tax mistakes?

What Tax mistakes? Well here is a few!!! >>>>

£900m disappears in HMRC data transfer Monday 30 Apr 2007

That's £900,000,000 (opps, a slight hicup, no one will miss it!!!!)

HMRC system charges wrong income tax Friday 13 Jul 2007

HMRC disciplines 600 staff over unauthorised data access Friday 2 May 2008

HMRC delays rules changeover as systems testing continuesTuesday 18 Sep 2007

HMRC taking 'precautionary measures' after loss of 15,000 records Tuesday 6 Nov 2007

Tories claim HMRC kept bank data on lost discs to save money Thursday 22 Nov 2007

HMRC denies IT-related £2.8bn tax credit loss Tuesday 29 Jul 2008

HMRC errors hit 1 million people Monday 9 Jul 2007

HMRC loses laptop with taxpayer data Monday 8 Oct 2007

MPs slam tax credits systemThursday 10 May 2007

HMRC offers £20k reward for missing benefit discs

Data sharing onslaught threatened Friday 13 Jul 2007

Chancellor faces up to UK's worst-ever data breach Tuesday 20 Nov 2007

Capgemini pays for system downtime Wednesday 18 Apr 2007

Government defends tripling of HMRC's IT bill for Aspire Monday 29 Oct 2007

HMRC data disc loss 'entirely avoidable' Thursday 26 Jun 2008

Revenue IT chief appointed chief operating officer Wednesday 17 Oct 2007

HMRC extends Aspire outsourcing deal in bid to cut costs Wednesday 7 Nov 2007

Security experts lambast HMRC Wednesday 21 Nov 2007

UK data breach: stripping data 'would not have been costly' Thursday 6 Dec 2007

Information commissioner to take action on HMRC, MoD Thursday 26 Jun 2008

HMRC board gains former Tesco CIO Thursday 8 Jan 2009


£ MULTI-BILLIONS LOST

If the Tax Credits System never made mistakes why did the UK Government get money from EDS, the computer installers????


M.P. Need new HD flatscreen TV's in the second homes, so someone has to pay for this...

Mr. Philip Hammond: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how much his Department has spent on (a) flat screen televisions, (b) DVD players and (c) stereo equipment in each of the last three years. [240386]
Huw Irranca-Davies:

The information is as follows:=

2008-0 9 Financial Year
(a) Flat screen televisions: £2,698.94
(b) DVD players: £509.96
(c) Stereo equipment: £0

2007-08 Financial Year
(a ) Flat screen televisions: £4,707.00
(b ) DVD players: £412.00
(c ) Stereo equipment: £12,572.00

2006-07 Financial Year
(a ) Flat screen televisions: £6,837.00
(b ) DVD players: £0
( c ) Stereo equipment: £0

We won't mention the cars, furniture, drinks, food, entertaining, trips out, and other Goodies they get.

And this is just one Department:::: So this is a lot of the Taxes Go!!!

Tax Credits - HMRC blame their mistakes on claimants

Tax Credits - HMRC blame their mistakes on claimants Immediate Release: 07.09.2006

HMRC blame tax credit claimants for mistakes made by the department. Further, it has emerged that tax credit claimants who have requested HMRC not to recover credit paid to them in error may have fared very differently, depending on when they made their request.

Many overpayments of tax credit arise through HMRC (‘official’) error.

Nevertheless, HMRC’s practice is to recover such overpayments from the claimant, unless the claimant can show that they reasonably thought their award was correct. This ‘reasonableness test’ is very stringently applied by HMRC, who not infrequently expect claimants to spot errors which HMRC themselves have not spotted.

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