In the UK 1 person in every 1,000 works for HMRC

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

Just read a small piece in Accountancy Magazine that has the following amazing facts:


HMRC employs 78,000 people.


That means that 1 person in every 1,000 in the UK works for HMRC.


In the US the equivalent tax authority employs 100,000.


So this makes HMRC look good?


Well no – there are five times the number of people in the US.


I would love to know what the 78,000 do.


How many of them work on correcting the numerous mistakes that HMRC make?


Is it me or does 78,000 sound a lot for the job done especially with the recent investment in on line services.

 

[E Storey]

I think Elaine's cruising for a tax inspection

 

[KM-Tiger]

I think Elaine's cruising for a tax inspection

I'd love to be a fly on the wall at that!

 

[Truemanbrown]

At least 7,000 members of staff work on the Tax Credit system around Preston and we all know what a mess they have made of that!!!

 

[KM-Tiger]

That means that 1 person in every 1,000 in the UK works for HMRC.

Actually it's worse than that, those figures give 1 in 215 of the working population.

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

At least 7,000 members of staff work on the Tax Credit system around Preston and we all know what a mess they have made of that!!!

Don't even get me started on the admin for tax credits and the like.

I wrote a blog on it only yesterday:

http://www.cheapaccounting.co.uk/blog/?p=860

 

[AccountancyStudent]

"Nothing is certain but death and taxes" - apparently 78000 people are needed to make it certain!

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

I would love to know what the 78,000 do.

In the interests of remaining courteous and professional I shall answer this as simply - so would I

Having said that I went to a seminar recently where some very brave soles from HMRC gave there views of working on the 'inside' and some of them clearly find the ridiculous systems and working practices as frustrating as we do.

 

[E Storey]

It's 5pm on a friday. time for the pub and an appropriate song for the thread...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuxSl_4yLz4

 

[christian_d]

doesn't everyone who owns a company work for the HMRC.?

I do, I collect their VAT!

 

[KM-Tiger]

"Nothing is certain but death and taxes"

In Chatham, Kent the HMRC office and the Co-op Funeral Service are next door to each other.

Nearest I've seen to a one-stop shop!

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

It's 5pm on a friday. time for the pub and an appropriate song for the thread...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuxSl_4yLz4

Brought a smile to my face

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

doesn't everyone who owns a company work for the HMRC.?

I do, I collect their VAT!

Yes but you're an unpaid tax collector!

 

[Geoff T]

It's 5pm on a friday. time for the pub and an appropriate song for the thread...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuxSl_4yLz4

Bing with long hair! NICE!!!

[for "pub" - see "fridge" - laters]

 

[Tom McClelland]

doesn't everyone who owns a company work for the HMRC.?

I do, I collect their VAT!

That was my reaction. On average all of us spend about 45% of our time working for one branch of HMRC or another. I think "Tax Freedom Day" has steadily moved up over the last few years and it is now late May or early June.

 

[MASSEY]

Well 78k against a 100k in america ,does that make hmrc look good?

If america operate more smoothly than the uk then that makes the hmrc look bad, because in comparison HMRC are far over staffed and still do a bad job?

 

[Geoff T]

Well 78k against a 100k in america ,does that make hmrc look good?

If america operate more smoothly than the uk then that makes the hmrc look bad, because in comparison HMRC are far over staffed and still do a bad job?

Could ANYTHING make them look better I wonder? But the one "firm" NONE OF US can really DO anything about changing?

Courts always take their word over ours... We can't win... love to see me proved wrong mind!

 

[Wild Goose]

Having said that I went to a seminar recently where some very brave soles from HMRC gave there views of working on the 'inside' and some of them clearly find the ridiculous systems and working practices as frustrating as we do.

Poor fish!

 

[Dawg]

I'm not sure the USA IR service is efficient. I saw a stat last week about the number of telephone calls answered from people who needed help with the call because of hearing difficulties. Of just under 300,000 incoming calls logged as being from people with hearing difficulties, 35 were answered. (from memory, and no, I don't know how they measured that.)

Perhaps the market purist argument used by the USA Revenue would be that deaf people don't earn much money, so aren't good for much tax, so why bother?
What? What? You want to inspect what? Speak up. Can't hear you...

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

Do you think HMRC provides a good service?

What can they improve upon?

Are they wasting any of the tax payers money?

 

[GaryMc]

128,000 in the French tax service with a similar population to the UK - how does that make HMRC look?

I read that article in Accountancy as well

 

[spidersong]

"HMRC employs 78,000 people.


That means that 1 person in every 1,000 in the UK works for HMRC.


In the US the equivalent tax authority employs 100,000."

Are we comparing apples and oranges here (Although I will admit that I haven't seen the article so don't konw what detail it goes to)?

I'm assuming they're talking about the IRS in the US (which has around 100,000 employees from 2008 figures), which is the collector for all Federal Taxes and Excise duties, however each individual state also imposes its own state sales taxes, state income tax, and some state corporation taxes as well, which are administered by a Department of Taxation for the state.

New York State for instance administers 42 state taxes and duties dealing with 25,000,000 returns in 2 bureaus (Petrol Alcohol Tobaco, and Revenue Crimes) as well as having a legal arm the Office of Tax enforcement.

Multiply that by 50 states and I think that we'll find quite a few more thousand tax officials lurking in the system, to do the same job that HMRC do: Income Tax, Environmental Tax, VAT/Sales Tax, Duty, Investigation, Inland Disruption etc. etc.

I'm not saying that HMRC are doing a good job accross the board, or that all the people they have are needed or useful (indeed I can name you quite a few who aren't) but I think the figures quoted are possibly misleading (To add another quote (although actually a paraphrase) to the debate "There are three kinds of untruth; Lies, Damn Lies, and Statisitics).

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

t

I'm not saying that HMRC are doing a good job accross the board, or that all the people they have are needed or useful (indeed I can name you quite a few who aren't) but I think the figures quoted are possibly misleading (To add another quote (although actually a paraphrase) to the debate "There are three kinds of untruth; Lies, Damn Lies, and Statisitics).

Figures quoted to simply highlight the number of people having their wages paid by the tax payer to collect taxes on the tax payers behalf.

IMO the number of large given the role performed and the increase in on line filing etc

Of course this is my opinion