The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG) welcomes HMRC’s recent announcement of £2 million a year of grants to be given over the next four years to voluntary sector bodies.
The new funding is designed to give groups who provide support and advice to HMRC customers who need most help in complying with their tax obligations and claiming their correct entitlements.
LITRG has been successful in securing grants to create innovative resources for two groups who find particular difficulty in engaging with HMRC and the systems for which HMRC is responsible. These are:
- older, disabled or otherwise vulnerable people who employ carers and therefore find themselves having to operate payroll systems and undertake the other regulatory burdens associated with being an employer; and
- migrants to the UK for whom there is as yet no comprehensive, and comprehensible, source of information on the tax and tax credits systems which they will encounter on arrival here.
John Andrews, Chairman of LITRG, commented:
“The Government should be applauded for its willingness to resource the voluntary sector to supply the education and support which HMRC are no longer able to provide fully due to budgetary constraints. This is a prudent and productive use of taxpayers’ funds which will in time produce a better informed population, better able to deal with the authorities and handle their own affairs, at a cost which represents good value for money.”
