‘Resource-stretched’ HMRC may not be able to answer the phone, thought at least it is spending enough of our cash on “diversity, inclusion, health and wellbeing” officers. A Freedom of Information request dispatched by Guido reveals that our tax overlords are spending a total of £4,495,726 of taxpayer cash on woke positions featuring words ranging from “diversity” and “inclusion” to “climate“, “wellbeing“, and “race“. Guido’s not quite sure how the below roles contribute to the collection of tax:

• Culture Impacting and Equalities Support
• Senior Consultant for Equality Diversity
• Values & Culture Advocate Lead
• Wellbeing Project Co-ordinator
• Culture Impacting and Equalities Support

Rachel Reeves wants to hire 5,000 new HMRC tax inspectors to close the theoretical “tax gap“. If politicians want to spend more of our cash on inspectors maybe they should institute a ‘one out, one in’ policy…

Reeves says of Angela Rayner’s ‘expert tax advice‘: “I haven’t asked to see the details and I haven’t asked to see the tax returns or the, tax advice, legal advice of any of my colleagues. This has got to be on a basis of trust.” Nick Ferrari couldn’t help but ask the shadow chancellor whether her 5,000 new HMRC inspectors would be able to ensure “everybody pays their fair share of tax”. Seeing as all you have to do to satisfy the Labour leadership is say that everything is above board according to secret advice…

“What if I’m able to say I’ve got private advice and I did nothing wrong and I’ve paid the right amount of tax, as is the case with one of your senior colleagues?“

Reeves said it was “almost 10 years ago now when she was married to her ex-husband before she was a Member of Parliament“. Rayner was still married to her husband at the time. She also would have had to submit her self-assessment return by January 2016, in respect of the year when she sold her property. In other words, when she was an MP…

At least Reeves has got the date right – this occurred 10 years ago as opposed to 15 as Rayner repeatedly claimed to Newsnight. Rayner gets Reeves’ “trust” and we get 5,000 extra tax inspectors to fill Labour’s imaginary “tax gap”…

You’d think with the highest burden since the war the UK’s tax overlords would have enough on their plate to bother coming into the office. Not so. So far this year only 53% of HMRC staff bothered to turn up to their desks at swanky 100 Parliament Street. The worst performer of all government departments…

HMRC was the only department to have below 50% of its desks occupied last year – that’s compared to 80% at the MoD. This comes as HMRC tries to close its own helpline for half of the year while spending £8 million annually on a whopping 155 press staff. Meanwhile PCS, the civil service union, is ramping up threats to strike if it civil servants don’t get a “shorter week for the same pay“. Does the government need to start funding treatment for work shyness?

Instead of giving any interviews to anyone, Angela Rayner is tweeting about the Tories’ tax cut plans and liking content that says she won’t face a police probe. To all the idiots on Twitter who think that settles it Guido would simply point out that HMRC investigations are not police matters, because HMRC is itself a law enforcement agency which has a strong cadre of criminal investigators responsible for investigating tax avoidance. She’ll be able to clear things up when she gives an interview to the media or HMRC…

Guido has often wondered how many staff at HMRC are paid to post memes about the tax self-assessment deadline and belittle innocent newspaper readers on social media. Now he can tell you the answer. An FOI request Guido sent to the department reveals that HMRC now employs a whopping 155 staff with “press“, “media“, or “communications” in their job title. It is in their remit to promote the department’s ever-increasing tax grab…

The combined salary of these press staff amounts to a whopping £8,307,839 of taxpayer cash per year. HMRC has brought on 20 extra media personnel onto the gravy train since 2020. To top it off, only 54% of our tax overlords even bothered turning up to the office last month according to the latest data, all while 64 of department staff spend time running woke “diversity networks” of every stripe. Our taxes are paying for the self-enrichment of HMRC’s bloated media team…

John Glen is speaking at the Institute for (Big) Government’s annual conference today to announce plans for a ““lean, keen and productive” civil service that include increased use of AI and new line management to “help tackle rare instances of unchecked poor performance or serious issues with agreed office attendance“. The government is pointing to surveys that show “learning from others” and staff interaction works better in the office compared to at home. The phrase “No sh*t, Sherlock” comes to mind…

Only 54% of tax overlords at HMRC were in the office this month according to the latest data, all while 64 civil servants in that department alone spend time running woke “diversity networks” of every stripe. HMRC even admits it does “not ask that colleagues centrally report time spent engaging with Staff Diversity Networks” so it cannot keep track of them. The government’s answer is to force them to meet outside of working hours or on lunch breaks…

Jeremy Hunt vowed to cut civil service numbers at Tory conference last year when its ranks actually grew by 3.2%. Adding 15,400 more pen pushers to the blob…