Making tax digital chaos

 MPs fear chaos in switch to digital tax returns

MPs have voiced concerns that HMRC’s plans to move the vast majority of its tax-collecting online could result in a "catastrophic collapse" in customer service. The Public Accounts Committee is unconvinced that the tax authority has a credible plan to prevent a “disastrous decline” in service if the IT transition went wrong. The committee’s report highlights problems at HMRC in 2015-16, when taxpayers were left waiting for a combined total of four million hours for phone calls to be answered after the Revenue reduced its workforce by 5,600. MPs also questioned HMRC’s claims to have cut the "tax gap" from 8.3% in 2005-06 to 6.5% (£36bn) in 2014-15, saying the calculation "contains a high degree of estimation and projection and it is not clear whether these estimates are realised in terms of extra tax being collected."

Source:   The Times (02/12/2016)