HMRC have announced downtime in their online systems for PAYE and National Insurance between Friday 23 June and Monday 26 June 2023. Many other online and telephone HMRC services will also be affected.

Hello

HMRC needs to have a re-think to find ways to simplify their Making Tax Digital (MTD) project in order to avoid vast future cost overruns. A National Audit Office (NAO) report this week shows that HMRC is currently 400% over budget. As far as throwing money into a vast 'black hole', few thought that anything could beat the IT disaster that was the COVID-19 Track n' Trace app. I hope that this is a wake-up call for all concerned. The MTD project now needs to be reviewed and aptly refined to ensure that it keeps up with technological change, delivers value for money and creates a significant improvement in tax reporting.

HMRC have announced that they are closing the Self Assessment telephone helpline for three months in order to re-direct staff to clear up the postal backlog. The closure comes after a decision to close its VAT registration helpline last month. Taxpayers who have tax queries are now being directed to search for answers to their queries online.

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Following research and consultation, HMRC is consulting on new proposals for tackling PAYE non-compliance by ‘Umbrella companies’. Quite why we need more new rules when we could surely just sweep up any stragglers by broadening the Agency rules in Chapter 7 Part 2 ITEPA 2003 is beyond me. We will keep following the consultations for you and see what comes out.

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There is news that the EU is going to introduce a new €7 visitor fee, yet another thing to slow us down at its borders! It has got me wondering just how long it will be before a British government can't resist a similar measure. In terms of administration, surely all anyone needs is a secure QR code at the border?