Having removed 130,000 people from self assessment because they no longer need to complete a tax return, HMRC has sent daily penalty notices to almost 12,000 of them in error.
Longer legislation written in plain English can be clearer and easier to use, and the length of the legislation does not generally add to complexity, the Office of Tax Simplification has found.
Taxpayers who have not filed their 2010/11 tax return online by 30 April will face new daily penalties from 1 May, in addition to the fixed £100 penalty.
HMRC has worked with BASDA and independent software developers to facilitate the development of record-keeping apps that are intended to ‘help small businesses and the self-employed who are below the [£77,000] VAT threshold maintain good records and estimate what their tax liability might be’.
HMRC has published or updated the following guidance:
Air passenger duty
HMRC has launched its business tax dashboard, an online service aimed at smaller businesses that enables the taxpayer to see the tax position across different business taxes. The service is not available to tax agents.
‘Is the government tough on avoidance? It has produced a report on an anti-avoidance rule. Who did it ask to develop this – a member of HMRC perhaps, or a barrister used by HMRC to combat avoidance?
HMRC will be forced to defend itself in court against an allegation that it gave a ‘sweetheart tax deal’ to Goldman Sachs, The Guardian reported today.
‘We are aware that over the last few days the steady improvement in contact centre service since 2010 has slipped,’ HMRC said in a statement posted on its website today. ‘We are determined to reverse that.’