HMRC Officers ?

Question

Not a question as such but more of an observation.......

There are a worrying amount of HMRC officers present on Yahoo answers and on that basis I think users should be a bit more frugal with the information they give and questions they ask..........

Don't get me wrong they are providing some good answers to some topical issues and maybe some of that is in their own time.......

I do hope there is nothing a bit more sinister behind their activity ;o)

All hail the taxmen........

Answer 1

Would it be a problem if this was part of a co-ordinated scheme? What do you think they would achieve?

OK, so some questioners give a reasonable amount of detail about their circumstances and ask how they can reduce or avoid the tax consequences. I think these are seriously seeking information and are not intending to break the law. Most of the sensible answers suggest ways to mitigate the impact of tax without crossing the boundary into illegality.

HMRC would rarely gain anything by tracing these people and investigating their returns.

A few people ask openly for ways to evade tax. These produce the usual crop of answers which are thinly disguised rants or just plain stupid. There is no useful information to be gleaned here.

By far the bulk of the questions are poorly expressed and contain much too little relevant information. I doubt HMRC would gain much information from these.

If I can risk turning this into my own private rant I am more worried about the following -

The UK tax code is now the most complicated in the world.

The number of really knowledgeable HMRC officers may be increasing on these forums but seem to be decreasing in the Revenue offices themselves.

Questioners are often advised to ring the help lines but the people employed to answer these often have limited knowledge and are not trained to elicit the relevant complex information. I do not mean to belittle them but they are only trained to answer the straightforward questions and regularly give the wrong answer when the query is outside their area of competence.

But the real biggie - the biggest worry of all is evidenced by the questions on this site. This is that a large chunk of the population seem unable to grasp even the simplest aspects of taxation (compounded by their fear of mathematics). I am thinking of such things as -

1. Questions about aspects of code numbers which are fully explained in the documentation HMRC sends out.

2. Asking if earnings should be subject to income tax. I'm not talking about grey areas such as compensation but basic earned income as in a second job.

3. Being unable to grasp that Capital Gains Tax is a tax on the gains made on capital items.

You get the idea I am sure. So many people have so little control over an area which has a fairly significant impact on their lives. Serious consideration needs to be given as to how best to implement an education programme to address these issues.

Sorry for hijacking your question. I feel better now.

Answer 2

I am on here because i enjoy the site. HMRC do watch certain sites such as EBAY but do not have the staff or inclination to police sites like this. I am an enquiry centre adviser so have alot of knowledge not a little as was suggested in the last answer, but they are right about some of the people on the phones.Hardly any of us have internet access at work so most if not all replies are in our own time.

Answer 3

I can assure you that there is no reason for HMRC to look at this forum for potential enquiries! Do you think that the government has a team monitoring the IP addresses of everyone that uses this forum? Of course not! The enquiry selection process is a lot less complex than that! The 'officers' that are posting on here appear to be working in 'Service' not 'compliance' where HMITs sit! Even now HMITs don't select their own enquiries - it is pretty much all computerised risk procedures now. And 'officers' are not in positions to open enquiries, only Inspectors can do that!

Why are you worried about HMRC officers on here? Do you not think that as civil servants they chose a career where they are often under paid and over worked? By their very nature they are self-deprecating animals who are working to support people like you and me. I can recognise on here the HMRC officers who don't have a clue about what they are going on about - and quite frankly they are no different to the joe blogs public who say 'well my mate said that he does this....' the only problem is that they shouldn't be on here identifying themselves as representatives of HMRC - which they are NOT.

I don't see this forum as anything less than a normal person's equivalent to 'Queries Please' in taxation magazine....

Answer 4

Yes.......
But both sides are represented, so it's a balanced discussion.

I note Fengirl2 hasn't answered this question yet.