HMRCSR0005

Written evidence submitted by Michael Kelly

Re: HMRC Standard Report 2022-23

I’m a Chartered Accountant and I know my institute is submitting detailed evidence to the committee, however please accept this as evidence based on my personal experience as a taxpayer myself and my professional experience dealing with HMRC on behalf of taxpayers. This experience extends over four decades.

Ever since the merger of Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise the standard of service and the broader culture of the combined body have been in decline, and this decline continues.

You will undoubtedly be given ample evidence of specific failings, but it is the overarching culture of HMRC that is unfit for purpose. HMRC are failing to provide a public service because there is no ethos of service within HMRC.

A major reason for this is that the means by which taxpayers or their representatives can raise complaints and obtain redress from HMRC are ineffective. HMRC are, de facto, their own regulators.

Nothing you do as a committee will achieve any meaningful change within HMRC unless you address this. Tinkering with systems or procedures will not achieve the wholesale change in culture that is required. Only a radical overhaul of how complaints about HMRC’s service and disputes about tax liabilities are handled will arrest the decline.

HMRC are a monopoly tax collector without adequate independent regulation; imagine how much dirtier our rivers would be if Ofwat didn’t exist? Please do examine the detail, but don’t get lost in it – radical change is long overdue.

October 2023