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November 2007 News Archive Portsmouth News 26 November 2007 TALKING POINT: Revenue bungle
Please log on to the Tax Credit Casualties’ website http://www.taxcreditoverpayment.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk and decide.
Victory for dad in tax demand challenge. 26 November 2007 See the article in the Peterborough Telegraph. Click here. Read the TCC forum posts on this topic. Click here. TCC Press Release 21 November 2007
Tax Credit Casualties Press Release & Statement: For immediate use HMRC: Culpable and Incompetent The Tax Credit Casualties are demanding real action to contain the misery HMRC are causing many millions of families. Today’s news of staggering breaches of data protection by HMRC only adds to the lengthy recent list of “operational failings”. Paula Dean, the founder member of Tax Credit Casualties, says “for too long HMRC have bodged responsibilities and badly covered their tracks. The public is getting so used to hearing tell of yet another inept HMRC scandal that it’s difficult to keep track of which one we’re currently gasping at.” Because of the latest incompetence, 25 million new sufferers are now being added to HMRC’s scorecard, and these honest people will experience the autocracy, duplication, plain stupidity, apparent deceit and lack of transparency that only HMRC can inflict – with their totally incompetent communications further compounding the problems. Yet this has been going on for years; what is it going to take to put a stop to it? Because so far, victimising claimants, shifting blame, draining the public purse, obfuscating the truth, reinventing laws and denying citizens their rights hasn’t stopped it.” And no-one in HMRC or Government will take any responsibility, despite being plainly aware of the plethora of problems. Tax Credit Casualties was set up in 2005 in response to the overpayment, by then, to 2 million honest Tax Credit claimants. The unjust manner in which the overpayments arose and the way those overpayments were subsequently handled by HMRC have yet to be common knowledge. Since then, the members of Tax Credit Casualties have fought to find a way through the heavily guarded maze and obsufication that is the Dispute process. In doing so, Tax Credit Casualties advise on how to research and handle Disputes, publicising the causes of the £2 billion of Tax Credit overpayments each year. Advice and support is given to each “member”, free of charge, throughout the Dispute process via the website and forum at www.taxcreditoverpayment.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk For further information please contact us Taxcreditoverpayment@blueyonder.co.uk Lost child benefit records Tuesday 20 November 2007 Police have been called in after computer discs containing personal details of every family in the country claiming child benefit went missing. The information was on two computer discs, which were sent by a junior member of staff at the Revenue and Customs, to the National Audit Office. They never arrived. The discs contained names, addresses, dates of birth and bank and national insurance details of 25 million people, raising concerns over the risk of identity fraud.That the unencrypted data was accessed and sent off site by unsecured post, not once but twice has caused outrage. Particularly in light of other high profile data security issues; HMRC have been recently exposed for :
The chairman of the HMRC board, Paul Gray, has resigned. The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, apologised to the Commons and has ordered an inquiry. Mr Darling said “HMRC operates independently of ministers [it’s an Arms Length Management Organisation] but is answerable [to parliament] through me”, and admits that there have been “operational failings”. He also insisted that “no families will suffer financially” yet ministers had known for 9 days before notifying the public, and alerts about I.D. fraud are focusing on advising people to check bank account transactions without apparently realising that this data can be used for other purposes, i.e. arranging credit cards etc. Unsurprisingly, opposition parties have seized this opportunity to question whether HMRC (and by implication, Gordon Brown) are “fit for purpose” and accused the government of “presiding over a catastrophe”. BBC News 24’s Economic experts suggest that staffing and budget cuts, unworkable technology and merging the Inland Revenue with Customs could be to blame, but say that calls for Alistair Darling to resign are premature; “He hasn’t been in the job long enough to be blamed for the culture and management of the organisation” So again we find ourselves looking at the person who was in the job when this culture of incompetency was being nurtured. How many more times is this mans capability going to be questioned before the anything changes? Meanwhile the victim tally increases exponentially as more and more lose controls of their lives and livelihoods to HMRC. Paula Dean Note: This is another "lead-in" story. Use it as a reason to make a letter or e-mail topical. See our Publicity page. ** STOP PRESS ** Monday 19 November 2007 The BBC Watchdog programme tonight ran a scathing report on HMRC. You can view the outline of the report here, but the show itself was absolutely scathing. The link is to the form regarding this weeks show – people should fill it in with company concerned “HMRC Tax Credit Office” – if we all get the same heading, it will have a bigger impact. Write a brief outline of your complaint. Please don't leave this to everyone else. Opportunity Knocks ...... |
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Tax Credit Casualties (TCC) is a voluntary, unfunded, not for profit
organisation run by members for members. We cannot take any responsibility for
decisions made by HMRC, The Parliamentary Ombudsman, The Adjudicator, or any
other organisation, regarding claimants cases. We offer free advice on how to
dispute unfair overpayments based on our own experiences, the experiences of
other claimants and HMRC guidelines.
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The same bungling HM Revenue and Customs which lost computer discs containing sensitive information about every family in Britain with children has already plunged millions of families into a non-fault overpayment situation.