| Does anyone on here claim benefits? 12:15 - Oct 7 with 10588 views | Billywitch |
I've never received a single penny of money/or had any help from any government.
And the more I read, the more it seems I'm a minority.
Interested to see the landscape of this forum [Post edited 7 Oct 17:29]
|  | | |  |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 17:20 - Oct 9 with 699 views | You_Bloo_Right |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 09:10 - Oct 9 by DJR |
The provisional estimate of the tax gap is 6.4% of total theoretical tax liabilities, or £59.2 billion in absolute terms, in the 2024 to 2025 tax year.
In 2024 to 2025 small businesses accounted for 62% of the tax gap, up from 58% in 2020 to 2021.
Large businesses accounted for around 12% of the tax gap over the period, while mid-sized businesses accounted for a smaller share, decreasing from 9% to 7%.
The share attributed to criminals fell from 13% to 8%. The share for individuals remained stable at around 4%, while the share for wealthy individuals increased from 4% to 6%.
The two main causes of the tax gap are criminal behaviour and failing to take reasonable care. Together they amount to approximately 61% of the tax gap.
Criminal behaviour includes evasion, criminal attacks and the hidden economy.
Other causes are:
error (16%),
differences in legal interpretation (12%);
non-payment (10%); and
avoidance (1%).
More tax inspectors wouldn't go amiss. [Post edited 9 Oct 9:11]
|
"More tax inspectors wouldn't go amiss."
Darn right! |  |
| |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 19:06 - Oct 9 with 606 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 17:20 - Oct 9 by You_Bloo_Right |
"More tax inspectors wouldn't go amiss."
Darn right! |
Just anyone prepared to pick up their phone would help. I don’t care if they’re an inspector or the cleaner. They must be one of the hardest agencies to reach and get a reply from. |  |
| |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 20:01 - Oct 9 with 557 views | Ryorry |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 19:06 - Oct 9 by Swansea_Blue |
Just anyone prepared to pick up their phone would help. I don’t care if they’re an inspector or the cleaner. They must be one of the hardest agencies to reach and get a reply from. |
You tried the DVLA recently? 😱
One of the biggest problems with HMRC for me is the ridiculous complexity, illogicality, lack of clarity, plus needless use of jargon, for lay people filling out their own s/a forms, esp for those running a very small scale side hustle, for whom, by the HMRC’s own admission, neither of the two types of form are fit for purpose.
You can, however, if you get through to HMRC, ask for a 1-1 in person meeting with an advisor who will go through it with you (and in my case (in 2019 iirc) filled it in for me in about 15 minutes flat!), so you can use that as a template for subsequent years.
You can also get services like the Which? one which electronically guides you through & does all the calculations for about £18. |  |
| |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? (n/t) on 20:14 - Oct 9 with 531 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 20:01 - Oct 9 by Ryorry |
You tried the DVLA recently? 😱
One of the biggest problems with HMRC for me is the ridiculous complexity, illogicality, lack of clarity, plus needless use of jargon, for lay people filling out their own s/a forms, esp for those running a very small scale side hustle, for whom, by the HMRC’s own admission, neither of the two types of form are fit for purpose.
You can, however, if you get through to HMRC, ask for a 1-1 in person meeting with an advisor who will go through it with you (and in my case (in 2019 iirc) filled it in for me in about 15 minutes flat!), so you can use that as a template for subsequent years.
You can also get services like the Which? one which electronically guides you through & does all the calculations for about £18. |
I’m hopefully done with HMRC now but my last s/a was a lot more drawn out than it needed to be. I made the mistake of having a question. That’s the frustration. Things can be really easy to solve, but you spend 3 hours on hold over about 5 goes.
If I want to speak to the DVLA I can pop over and shout up at their windows  [Post edited 9 Oct 20:17]
| |
| |
| If you want to know how many people are on benefits on 20:35 - Oct 9 with 508 views | MVBlue |
| If you want to know how many people are on benefits on 15:35 - Oct 7 by Tractor_Buck |
The only thing that shows is that Labour MPs represent areas with a greater population density.
Try harder. |
There’s something to the benefits story and understanding that’s not quite lining up with what many of us understand. There’s PIP for any health situation between bad back, chronic illness or mentally challenging situation. This may well be a very broad brush these days where a doctor may be signing off any varied number of people, most of us would expect them to be seriously unable to work.
Then there’s housing benefit which I don’t understand but track that private landlords can target HMO housing to housing benefit claimants so it must be a defined market.
Jobseekers and child benefit don’t seem to be the bulk of the cost those 2 above do? |  |
| |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 04:00 - Oct 10 with 401 views | Churchman |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 17:20 - Oct 9 by You_Bloo_Right |
"More tax inspectors wouldn't go amiss."
Darn right! |
From the internet:
‘Overall Headcount Reduction: In 2005, HMRC employed approximately 92,000 staff. By 2016, amid the height of austerity changes, the workforce had shrunk by 43% down to roughly 52,000 staff. Over a broader two-decade window encompassing the austerity era, HMRC's workforce shrank by about 35%.
Loss of Tax Professionals: Analysis from organizations like TaxWatch UK noted that the number of civil servants explicitly defined as "tax professionals" fell by 40% between 2016 and 2023.
Office Closures: Rather than executing sweeping, explicit mass layoffs of inspectors, the government closed down 137 local tax offices and 281 walk-in help centers to consolidate into 13 regional hubs. This forced thousands of local staff out of the organization because they were unable to relocate’
From 2010, the government weren’t the least bit interested in collecting tax. It wasn’t a priority. Headcount reduction and cuts were all they cared about. They never bothered to ask what tax inspectors actually did (they tend to specialise in different areas of tax), what their experience levels were or anything else. So a lot of experience was paid off and shoved out of the door. Tax gap? They had no interest in that whatsoever.
Call centres etc? In the bin. Training staff? They had no idea what staff they had let alone investing in anything. Francis Maude described cabinet office staff to their faces as ‘dead wood’ on his first day. That is how that government viewed the CS and ultimately why the service is so poor.
Austerity? Deeply stupid and many people including the Treasury cat thought so at the time. |  | | |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 08:47 - Oct 10 with 321 views | You_Bloo_Right |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 04:00 - Oct 10 by Churchman |
From the internet:
‘Overall Headcount Reduction: In 2005, HMRC employed approximately 92,000 staff. By 2016, amid the height of austerity changes, the workforce had shrunk by 43% down to roughly 52,000 staff. Over a broader two-decade window encompassing the austerity era, HMRC's workforce shrank by about 35%.
Loss of Tax Professionals: Analysis from organizations like TaxWatch UK noted that the number of civil servants explicitly defined as "tax professionals" fell by 40% between 2016 and 2023.
Office Closures: Rather than executing sweeping, explicit mass layoffs of inspectors, the government closed down 137 local tax offices and 281 walk-in help centers to consolidate into 13 regional hubs. This forced thousands of local staff out of the organization because they were unable to relocate’
From 2010, the government weren’t the least bit interested in collecting tax. It wasn’t a priority. Headcount reduction and cuts were all they cared about. They never bothered to ask what tax inspectors actually did (they tend to specialise in different areas of tax), what their experience levels were or anything else. So a lot of experience was paid off and shoved out of the door. Tax gap? They had no interest in that whatsoever.
Call centres etc? In the bin. Training staff? They had no idea what staff they had let alone investing in anything. Francis Maude described cabinet office staff to their faces as ‘dead wood’ on his first day. That is how that government viewed the CS and ultimately why the service is so poor.
Austerity? Deeply stupid and many people including the Treasury cat thought so at the time. |
I seem to recall you mentioning previously the winding up of the (many?) specialist team(s) who more than paid for themselves through the extra tax revenue they brought in.
The exemplar of the government's approach at the time and presumably not reversed since. | |
| |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 09:27 - Oct 10 with 291 views | Churchman |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 08:47 - Oct 10 by You_Bloo_Right |
I seem to recall you mentioning previously the winding up of the (many?) specialist team(s) who more than paid for themselves through the extra tax revenue they brought in.
The exemplar of the government's approach at the time and presumably not reversed since. |
I did because that’s exactly what happened. They were paid to go well before retirement age too. I’m golfing with some of them on Monday funnily enough.
There are ‘large business’, ‘small business’’Construction Industry’ teams, you name it and people doing all sorts of different stuff. There’s also the IT side of it of course. My knowledge of how these people go about it is out of date now and was always sketchy, not being a tax specialist myself, but I knew enough to know that the 2010 Osborne aporoach was all wrong.
One of the things that they started doing to save money was to get rid of experienced people and replacing them with graduates. That saved a lot in wages but cost bundles in redundancy payments and particularly loss of tax revenue.
Fully qualified Tax people are trained to degree level and beyond, which is fine for graduates capability wise. However, it takes years of experience to become effective at the job, so I’m told, and the government at the time just weren’t interested. They also failed to appreciate plenty of graduates would come in, get the qualifications at taxpayer expense then scoot off to people like Insolvency Practitioners where pay and prospects were considerably better. | | | |
Login to get fewer ads
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 09:48 - Oct 10 with 258 views | You_Bloo_Right |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 09:27 - Oct 10 by Churchman |
I did because that’s exactly what happened. They were paid to go well before retirement age too. I’m golfing with some of them on Monday funnily enough.
There are ‘large business’, ‘small business’’Construction Industry’ teams, you name it and people doing all sorts of different stuff. There’s also the IT side of it of course. My knowledge of how these people go about it is out of date now and was always sketchy, not being a tax specialist myself, but I knew enough to know that the 2010 Osborne aporoach was all wrong.
One of the things that they started doing to save money was to get rid of experienced people and replacing them with graduates. That saved a lot in wages but cost bundles in redundancy payments and particularly loss of tax revenue.
Fully qualified Tax people are trained to degree level and beyond, which is fine for graduates capability wise. However, it takes years of experience to become effective at the job, so I’m told, and the government at the time just weren’t interested. They also failed to appreciate plenty of graduates would come in, get the qualifications at taxpayer expense then scoot off to people like Insolvency Practitioners where pay and prospects were considerably better. |
Many organisations, it seems to me, are driven by this sort of short-term thinking without consideration of the long term impact/cost of failure that removing that experience might bring.
It is to the detriment of the nation that such an approach has left us all worse off. | |
| |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 10:11 - Oct 10 with 237 views | oldbeardy |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 09:48 - Oct 10 by You_Bloo_Right |
Many organisations, it seems to me, are driven by this sort of short-term thinking without consideration of the long term impact/cost of failure that removing that experience might bring.
It is to the detriment of the nation that such an approach has left us all worse off. |
They are having much the same discussion in the US where IRS staffing has been cut back very significantly and similar questions about the marginal cost of an additional tax inspector vs the marginal gain in terms of extra tax collected are happening | | | |
| If you want to know how many people are on benefits on 10:32 - Oct 10 with 214 views | Ryorry |
| If you want to know how many people are on benefits on 20:35 - Oct 9 by MVBlue |
There’s something to the benefits story and understanding that’s not quite lining up with what many of us understand. There’s PIP for any health situation between bad back, chronic illness or mentally challenging situation. This may well be a very broad brush these days where a doctor may be signing off any varied number of people, most of us would expect them to be seriously unable to work.
Then there’s housing benefit which I don’t understand but track that private landlords can target HMO housing to housing benefit claimants so it must be a defined market.
Jobseekers and child benefit don’t seem to be the bulk of the cost those 2 above do? |
?? Um - what??! 🤷♂️ | |
| |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 12:05 - Oct 10 with 141 views | ArnoldMoorhen |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 12:57 - Oct 7 by mutters |
Hey that's my niche, I really don't need the competition as it's a hard enough market. |
You have overlooked the possibility of the lucrative Mutters X Stow belly on belly action Live Streams...
And cross-posting and shout outs!
It's a Community, guys, sharing is caring! | | | |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 23:49 - Oct 10 with 48 views | LuciBlue |
| Is anyone on here claim benefits? on 09:27 - Oct 10 by Churchman |
I did because that’s exactly what happened. They were paid to go well before retirement age too. I’m golfing with some of them on Monday funnily enough.
There are ‘large business’, ‘small business’’Construction Industry’ teams, you name it and people doing all sorts of different stuff. There’s also the IT side of it of course. My knowledge of how these people go about it is out of date now and was always sketchy, not being a tax specialist myself, but I knew enough to know that the 2010 Osborne aporoach was all wrong.
One of the things that they started doing to save money was to get rid of experienced people and replacing them with graduates. That saved a lot in wages but cost bundles in redundancy payments and particularly loss of tax revenue.
Fully qualified Tax people are trained to degree level and beyond, which is fine for graduates capability wise. However, it takes years of experience to become effective at the job, so I’m told, and the government at the time just weren’t interested. They also failed to appreciate plenty of graduates would come in, get the qualifications at taxpayer expense then scoot off to people like Insolvency Practitioners where pay and prospects were considerably better. |
Add to that the merging with HMC&E and the relocation of work but not staff/training. Everyone on the ground knew it wouldn't work and got out with a payoff.
As a side note, I worked alongside a couple of Uni Graduates that found alphabetical filing a complete mystery. These were the replacements for years of lost experience. [Post edited 10 Oct 23:52]
|  |
| |
| |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
