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With news of MPs' repayments and resignations coming in over expenses, I find myself in a somewhat positive mood with HMRC. The only real flies in the ointment were Jacqui Smith's delightfully insincere apology, and the fact that those MPs that are standing down at the next election (they always remember to say that bit fast and quietly) are going to get a Resettlement allowance of between 50% and 100% of their salaries.

I think they should all consider themselves fairly lucky. It's only the expenses as far back as 2004 that are being scrutinised. If it was a self-assessment being investigated they would look at 7 years of records, and any underpayments would be expected to be paid back in short order.

The most laughable aspect of this whole thing is MPs complaining that the audit is "unfair", clearly misunderstanding what the word means. "Fair" would be claiming expenses in line with the rest of us, in accordance with HMRC rules, something I think we would all be very pleased to see.

For some reason I am reminded of a Heinlein quotation: "I don't trust a man who talks about ethics when he is picking my pocket. But if he is acting in his own self-interest and says so, I have usually been able to work out some way to do business with him."

Those of you who are regular readers will be aware of my slightly ranty post about the fuss surrounding the BBC advising people working with them to become contractors. Well, it has allowed another story to surface from the depths surrounding HMRC taking the accounting firm Vantis to court over their use of the Gift Aid scheme. Their system allowed their clients to avoid the 40% tax bracket and unlike normal Gift Aid left the charities with next to nothing.

Short of outright theft from a charity I don't think I can think of a way the story could be more morally reprehensible. It shares a theme with the MPs in that the complaints from Vantis are that they stayed within the rules, something HMRC are I think about to put to the test. Probably the best part of the story is that the deputy managing director and the managing director of Vantis both of whom have been summoned to court, are former Revenue officers.

There had to be one piece of bad news amid all this, and it's a minor point for most of us. HMRC are changing the time limit on reclaiming tax. The period is shortening from 6 years to 4 years, making March the last point you can claim back tax for the 04/05 and the 05/06 tax years. So don't put off claiming back incorrect tax this year, you'll be missing out.

In other self-assessment related news, I should warn you not to open any emails claiming to be from HMRC, and definitely don't open any attachment on those messages no matter what they say. This is just spam, it happens every year around the self assessment cut off, so just be very careful. If you're not sure about the message, just open your browser and Google "HMRC" and get the number for your local tax office from there. Don't click any links in the email, just delete it.

Hugo
16/10/2009