2) Taxpayers are not customers - would a business have the legislative powers to be able to penalise their customers for choosing not to do business with them? We, like many others, believe that by simply using the term customer doesn’t make a taxpayer a customer and nor does it affect the service that they receive from HMRC staff. 3) We recognise that moving to increased use of digital technology and automation will reduce costs for HMRC however the feedback we have received in increasing amounts suggests that reduction of staff numbers has removed a vital human element that provides a common sense ability to resolve an issue where the error appears to have been caused by HMRC processes. 4) Agent involvement between the customer and HMRC appears to have suffered as a result of increased use of automation which appears also to have seen an increase in blame culture by remaining HMRC contact centre staff who are not in a position to establish where the error has occurred - "it is the agents fault" or “the client has done something wrong” are commonly reported comments. 5) Layers within a penalty regime currently exist based on numbers but should consideration be given to the type of employer? Certain domestic employers benefit from a number of ‘relaxations’ in legislation, it would be encouraging to see consideration being given to all domestic employers particularly on the subject of penalties. We would ask therefore should a domestic employer be judged on a par with a business employer? Whilst late payment penalties continue to be assessed on a risk assessment basis, our members responses to these and other surveys suggest that there has been a level of deterioration with payment compliance due to reallocation and reconciliation which we believe is due, in part, to increased use of automation by HMRC and we would ask that consideration be given as part of this consultation to the part in which HMRC staff and systems play in achieving tax payer compliance.
If the taxpayer is truly to be considered a customer then HMRC systems and customer service must improve.
CIPP comment We have formally responded to HMRC and you download our full response through the link below.
CIPP response to HMRC Discussion Document on Penalties
We would as ever like to thank those who took the time to feed in their comments to this discussion document survey. We would also like to thank those who responded to the Re-allocation of PAYE remittances survey which we ran through February and March; the responses were also used to feed in to this response.
HMRC online Penalty Appeal Process - customer feedback survey 18 May 2015
Please take a few minutes to share your views of HMRC’s online appeals service.
HMRC, together with stakeholders of the EPG RTI sub-group have produced a survey which looks to gather the views of employers and agents who have used the online appeals service.
If you have used the HMRC Penalty & Appeals Service please share your views and experiences by going to the Automatic Penalty Appeal Process Survey . This survey is completely anonymous and should take approximately 5 - 10 minutes of your time.
Thank you for feeding back to the Automatic Penalty Appeal Process Survey .
Pay As You Earn (PAYE) forms for employees 15 May 2015
HMRC has updated their GOV.UK web page for PAYE forms .
Get PAYE forms from HMRC including P45, P60, starter checklist (which replaced the P46), P11D(b).
Guidance on what to do when an employee leaves has also been updated.
CIPP Policy News Journal
25/04/2016, Page 269 of 453
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