Journal :: Her Majestys Revenue and Customs

Published: August 9, 2004
Author: Graham Dragon
Category: Tax
Permalink: Her Majestys Revenue and Customs

Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise are dead ? long live Her Majesty?s Revenue & Customs!

Following the announcement in the Budget that Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise were to be merged we now have details of the merger. The new department is to be called Her Majesty?s Revenue & Customs. The Chairman and Deputy Chairman have both been selected and will take up their new positions on 1st September 2004.

The Chairman, David Varney, is currently the Chairman of the mobile phone company, MMO2. An interesting choice, considering it is mobile phone distributors who seem to be the main culprits in the ?missing trader? VAT fraud schemes. At the moment Customs? answer to the fraud is to collect the missing VAT from other, possibly innocent, businesses in the chain. These businesses do not have the money ? it is the trader elsewhere in the chain that has disappeared with Customs? money ? but this makes no difference to Customs & Excise. Hopefully the new Chairman, with his industry background, will find some less draconian ways to stop this leak from the Treasury.

The Deputy Chairman, Paul Gray, is Second Permanent Secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions. Traditionally the DWP have been at loggerheads with Inland Revenue, so it will be interesting to see how he settles in. The Treasury are pleased to announce that Mr Gray is the proud owner of a flock of sheep. A sign, perhaps, that although we may all bleat about the new hardened attitude to tax avoidance, we are expected meekly to follow the government?s hard line and meet our fate without further protest. We are also told Mr Gray is an ardent supporter of Leicester City FC. The same club that decided the best way to deal with its debts was to walk away from them and start again? I am not so sure this will make Mr Gray or his new department look any more favourably on phoenix operations or those advisers who encourage or support them.

Joking aside, between them Mr Varney and Mr Gray appear to have a wealth of experience in both industry and the civil service. Hopefully they will use this experience to prevent the new Revenue & Customs department from being too heavy handed with businesses who wish to legitimately avoid, but not evade, tax. Then again, don?t hold your breath!

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About Graham Dragon

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