International Trade

Watch It! Here Comes The Mammoth

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...cheat the system, I suppose. It’s still a chore to think about your tax but now they will do much more of the thinking for you. And the speed they do things at is transformed.

Now, I can ring them, or email them or write or whatever, and I will get an answer straightaway, and one I can rely on. I don’t think my life is particularly complicated. I have two families with four kids all under the age of 16 and do a bit of consulting work alongside the company I run. But I can still remember how hard it used to be to get my head round what government wanted from me. What with PAYE for my employees, corporation tax, VAT and excise for my export business, self-assessment for my consultancy and claims for this or that tax credit – it’s no wonder I spent so much time with my accountant!

‘Now when I want to, I can check things out on line. Advice is tailored to my situation and I don’t have to know anything about different taxes and allowances – it’s all done for me when I key in my circumstances, with links to things I didn’t know I qualified for! A detailed audit report tells me precisely why I do, or don’t, qualify for something.’

Now, just in case you think I have toppled off my trolley completely, let me tell you that the source of the above scenario is HM Revenue & Customs. Whoever wrote it, in my view, was under the influence of some hallucinatory substance because I have never, ever, read such utter garbage in all my life. Does someone in HMR&C actually believe that an IT system as envisaged is able to be created and sustained?

I gather that, during last... continued on page three >

 

 

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