Tag Archives: HM Revenue and Customs

New measures and greater clarity needed to fight tax fraud – News from Parliament – UK Parliament

April 19, 2016 By in Austerity, Business Administration, David Cameron, Fiscal Policy, George Osborne, Politics Tags: , , , , Leave a comment
HM Revenue and Customs seen from Parliament Sq...

HM Revenue and Customs seen from Parliament Square (Whitehall, London, England). Photographed by Adrian Pingstone in June 2005 and placed in the public domain. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Public Accounts Committee has published a report on how effectively HMRC tackles tax fraud. Perhaps not surprisingly the PAC concludes that HMRC must try harder.

Source: New measures and greater clarity needed to fight tax fraud – News from Parliament – UK Parliament

The PAC found that HMRC has not set out a clear strategy for dealing with tax fraud and concludes it does not know what meeting its target of 1,000 additional prosecutions has achieved.

As a professional who has specialized in delivering strategy, I identify with the PAC findings. An effective strategy is mandatory for a government department to provide cost efficient top quality service. Without an effective strategy professionally delivered there is just enormous waste.

Thoughts?

Opinion – “Misery Index” at lowest level since 1950s | Brookings Institution – John Gelmini

April 12, 2016 By in Business Administration, David Cameron, Elderly, Fiscal Policy, Independent Professional Services, People, Politics, Unemployment Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Dr. Alf is correct in his analysis and I would question this index on more fundamental grounds.

The Misery Index was conceived in the 1970s when inflation and unemployment figures were compiled differently and before the deliberate falsification of unemployment figures that has taken place in both the UK and America. UK unemployment is supposed to be 1.8 million but 2 million people who have registered businesses which have not traded and not made their directors a penny are counted as “self-employed”, 1 million people are in training schemes but in reality not working, 1 million people are NEETS (not in education, employment or training) but they are not counted as unemployed, 1/2 million people who are not working have been “sanctioned” by DWP jobcentre advisors but are not working, another 500,000 people who are redundant are in receipt of severance pay are ” deemed to be working” because they are in receipt of National Insurance contributions.

People who are on holiday are forced to sign off, those who are “waiting to hear about benefits” are not counted as unemployed even though they are not working and a further 11 million people who are too young to retire and too old to interest ageist employers are counted as either “economically discouraged ” or economically inactive.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation looks at this sort of thing in some detail but even they do not know the full extent of the numerical gerrymandering as it has been explained to me by several of the Governments “training for work” providers.

A further 2 million people on “Personal Independence Payments” (the successor to incapacity benefit and “Disability Living Allowance” are unable to work but not counted in the unemployment figures.

Thus, we have a situation where real unemployment and a fair amount of misery is airbrushed out of the figures without the explanations and footnotes that Dr. Alf will remember from his years of distinguished work as a Financial Director, Chartered Accountant and interim manager looking at Annual Reports and Accounts and preparing them to international standards capable of independent audit.

The real data is kept in something called the “Benefits Computer” and is accessed by Government Ministers and top civil servants but never made public for obvious reasons.

America does not go to quite these lengths but also understates the true figures by making it harder for redundant executives, managers and workers to claim unemployment benefits in the first place.

John Gelmini