HMRC is spending more than £6 million per year on staff to administer the hated Making Tax Digital rules, which will force self-employed and other taxpayers to file tax information five times a year. You can’t hate these guys enough…
The pointless regime has as of this month begun pulling people in for the first time. This year it is for those earning over £50,000 – next year that drops to £20,000…
Guido’s FoI Unit has obtained information about the large, ragtag HMRC team administering the rules.
“At the start of the 2026/27 financial year, 158 fully MTD-trained full-time equivalent (FTE) advisors will support the introduction of Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax.”
53 full time equivalent advisers make up the dedicated MTD Customer Support Team, which “provides detailed guidance and support for MTD queries, including processing exemption requests.” on top of that 105 “front-line advisers” will provide support to customers as required, based on demand. The total estimated annual salary costs for these roles in 2026/27 is £6,508,013…
65 of those advisers are on temporary contracts. The administration costs will only grow…
The Office for Budget Responsibility’s own detailed costings of Reeves’ new Mansion Tax predict 40% of appeals against property valuations will be successful. Introducing a new band with re-evaluations will be utter chaos…
The OBR has put out supplementary forecast information on the new tax this morning. The forecaster predicts the Treasury will lose £275 million in lost stamp duty, capital gains tax and inheritance tax receipts before the Mansion Tax even begins to collect £400 million per year subsequently. It says there will be a “reduction in the new-build rate for properties above the threshold.” It also suggests behavioural responses from consumers will destroy a third of the projected tax receipts…
The OBR assumes a 20% valuation appeal rate with 40% of those appeals being successful, which takes 4% off total revenue. Reeves’ shoehorned support scheme for households earning under £30,000 also reduces receipts by 9%…
In addition the OBR’s costings are based on automated valuations. There has not been a new valuation round since 1991. It rates the policy as highly uncertain. For its part the Valuation Office Agency has still not got its ducks in a row. Information obtained by Guido shows the VOA has not developed resourcing or recruitment plans for the Mansion Tax and says “a minority” of the 1,000 new recruits to HMRC will be assigned to it. More effort than it is worth…
Angela Rayner potentially faces an extremely long wait before making a leadership push, figures uncovered by Guido reveal.
Figures from HMRC show that in the last four years the average length of time that Stamp Duty Land tax (SDLT) investigations have taken to complete is an average of 35 months. Rayner admitted she may have paid the wrong tax on 5 September last year, only seven months ago…
The best yearly performance is a whopping 27 months, posted in the 24/25 financial year:
| Tax year | Average length of time of closed cases had taken to complete (SDLT) |
|---|---|
| 2021/22 | 31 months |
| 2022/23 | 39 months |
| 2023/24 | 43 months |
| 2024/25 | 27 months |
Since Rayner’s operation conceded that the investigation would have to be finished before she made any attempt at the Labour leadership, the former DPM’s annoyance at HMRC for taking so long (she ‘offered to help‘ at one point) has made frequent appearances in the press. Some actually oppose the complex and overbearing tax burden – Rayner is not one of them…
Rayner has now “taken new legal advice which argues that she did not need to pay the higher rate of stamp duty” and handed it to HMRC. Despite her contestation the Times was helpfully told: “Rayner will accept the outcome of HMRC’s investigation and pay any fine that is due”…
Rayner is hoping HMRC will finish its investigation in May, which would be the best timing for her. The taxman points out those average durations “represent the entire lifecycle of an SDLT enquiry, from the point a case is opened to its final closure. This includes any time spent in appeal and review
processes or litigation, where applicable. These stages can extend the length of an enquiry and are often influenced by actions taken by customers or their agents, rather than HMRC alone.“ Rayner may have shot herself in the foot with that helpful new tax advice…
Were the taxman to conclude her investigation in only eight months despite its apparent complexity, eyebrows would be raised regarding the agency’s hands-on treatment of the former DPM. You’d have to ask the question…
See the figures below:
Continue reading “HMRC Stamp Duty Investigations Take 35 Months on Average in Blow to Rayner”
HMRC data published today shows 864,000 self-employed workers and landlords will be forced into quarterly digital tax reporting when ‘Making Tax Digital for Income Tax’ goes live in April. The construction sector is the worst affected, with 251,000 businesses caught by the new rules. That is nearly a third of the total. One-man band plumbers, electricians, and bricklayers who are now required to file four times a year instead of one…
London accounts for the single biggest regional share at 167,000, boosted by 35,000 landlords-only, nearly three times the number in any other region. Across the country 118,000 people whose only qualifying income is from property will be pulled into the pointless regime for the first time.
The mandate applies to anyone with combined self-employment and property income above £50,000. Each will need compatible accounting software to submit quarterly updates to the tax man, so that’s yet another new recurring cost on top of the extra tedious admin. At least the accountants will be happy. And good luck getting on the phone to HMRC when this system inevitably hits the skids…
Angela Rayner could now face yet another tax bill over the legal advice Labour paid for to examine her personal finances before her resignation last September. It’s a day ending in Y, so Angela Rayner’s tax affairs are back in the headlines…
The Times has revealed that Labour used party funds to hire Jonathan Peacock KC, a leading tax barrister, to examine whether Rayner had underpaid stamp duty on her £700,000 flat in Hove. Ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus wrote at the time that the advice she sought “covered her personal position in relation to council tax, stamp duty land tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax”. Here we go again…
Under the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, employer-funded legal costs are usually only tax-exempt where they relate to liabilities or proceedings connected with the employee’s duties or office. Rayner’s advice concerned her personal property arrangements and had no connection to her parliamentary duties or her role within the party. If the payment is treated as a benefit provided by reason of her office as Deputy Leader of the party, HMRC would likely view that as a taxable benefit in kind on which she would owe income tax. This all happened within the current tax year, so if there’s tax owed, it wouldn’t need to be reported and paid yet. When the time comes, will the former ‘DPM’ open her purse? She should be used to this by now…
There are millions of taxpayers out there who would appreciate someone else picking up their accountancy bill without that being taxable. Sadly, that’s not how it works in the real world…
Only 3.8% of taxpayers required to sign up to HMRC’s new digital tax collection system which will require self-employed people to file taxes four times a year have done so. ‘Making Tax Digital’ is a cumbersome operation designed to expand HMRC’s reach…
HMRC slipped out a note to the Public Accounts Committee late last month that confirmed an extraordinary low take-up of 18,000. The taxman is briefing that the figure has since risen to 30,000. Only 750,000 short for this year…
Uptake will become mandatory from April under the new regime. The system requires all self-employed taxpayers to sign up now who earn £50,000 a year or more. From 2027 that threshold drops to £30,000, then £20,000 the year after. It’s coming for everyone…
Speaking to Sky News off the back of Rachel Reeves’ Air Passenger Duty hike, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said:
“Labour is dependent on those Red Wall seats, and yet every move she makes poisons economic growth and damages the UK’s recovery… it’s the Chancellor who stumbles from policy misstep to policy misstep… I think her policy decisions are incredibly stupid.”