HMRC - more errors

Furher to this I now read that:

"This week more problems have emerged with a new computer system which tells employers how much tax to deduct from our pay.
...
Revenue insiders have told Money Box that in some cases it is double-taxing the value of benefits like a car or health insurance provided by employers.

It has also emerged that married couples and civil partners aged 76 or more could lose an allowance worth nearly £700.

And more than half-a-million people, who started claiming their state pension this tax year, could automatically have too much tax deducted from their income next tax year.

The Revenue says it has recently fixed problems including those with state pensions and benefits in kind, but admits it is still working to resolve remaining issues. "

Another great HMRC IT system...

"Children are a lifestyle choice"

Indeed they are and Devils Kitchen explains why...

Gordon Brown's flagship policy still crap

I see that:

"The overpayment of tax credits is still continuing at a "dismaying" level, says a report from a committee of MPs.

The Public Accounts Committee says overpayments, which are then clawed back from claimants, are still running at £1bn a year.

The MPs said the overpayments were a burden on hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable people in society.

Overpayments amounted to £7.3bn between 2003 and 2007 with nearly £3bn likely to be written off as unrecoverable. "

Well done Gordon Brown, the man who designed and introduced this overly bureaucratic inflexible and ill-conceived system. Well done indeed... You can read more about Tax Credits here.

Does Welfare Reform Affect Fertility?

The answer is obviously yes but it has taken a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies to get the fact into the newspapers but not so far as I can tell onto the BBC. The Telegraph reports that:

"An academic study claims that an extra 45,000 babies were born to mothers who left school at 16 in the year after the "unprecedented" increase in the value of child benefits introduced by Labour.

Some women told researchers they had stopped using contraception.

The more generous welfare system is being credited with contributing to an increase in the overall UK birth rate, which is now at its highest level since 1974.

The report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies concludes: "We have shown that more generous Government support coincided with an increase in births among the group most affected by the [welfare] reforms.

"We have also provided supporting evidence of a decline in use of contraception among the group affected.

"Our results indicate a sizeable response in childbearing among the group affected by the reform."

...

For couples who both left school at 16, the reforms meant an increase in benefits of 45 per cent, from £39 a week to £56.76. This is a rise almost twice as much as the handouts for which a couple who went on to sixth form college would be eligible, which increased by 25 per cent to £37.27 a week.

The researchers then looked at fertility rates both before the reforms were announced and after, for a sample of 101,330 women aged between 20 and 45.

They found a large increase in the first year after the benefits were made more generous, particularly among women who had left school as soon as possible.

The results show a 15 per cent increase in the probability of having a baby in the "low education group", equivalent to an extra 45,000 births compared with 670,000 across Britain as a whole."

Staggering isn't it, the IFS just working out that if the Country pays chav children to have babies then they might just do that rather than work? Why should the feckless work in a low paid job when they can just get paid for reproducing? However by the same token why should Gordon Brown's "hard-working" families and indeed hard working singles have to pay for the reproductively irresponsible. Don't forget that Karen Matthews the kidnapper of her own daughter, Shannon, had never worked but because she had seven children – by five different fathers – was able to claim an estimated £286.60 a week in benefits. Maybe someone could explain to the chavvy Child Tax Credits claimers that having a child is not a right and if they cannot afford to keep a child they should use contraception or even abstain from sex.

So do we as a Country want to pay to raise another generation of tax credits junkies or do we want to start to engender some responsibility in the next generation.

Gordon Brown's flagship policy

Tax Credits were Gordon Brown's flagship policy so you will not be surprised to learn that like most of Gordon Brown's policies it has been a failure. Since their introduction in 2003 the amount of money lost in fraud and overpayment of tax credits has been £14,900,000,000 (that's almost $14 billion). The system is so faulty that the National Audit Office has failed to sign the accounts.

My query is this, where did the £14 billion come from? Was it in the original budget, in other words were these "losses" budgeted for? If so then were not the people setting the budget complicit in the losses? If it was not in the original budget and the extra money was just "found", then how much money is floating around Government departments to be so allocated?

As Gordon Brown always seemed to pass responsibility for answering questions on the Tax Credits debacle to a junior Treasury Minister when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer and as he doesn't answer questions at PMQs now he is Prime Minister, I doubt if there is any point in David Cameron raising such questions in today's PMQs.

The 'four-stage plan'

"the 'Four-Stage Plan' to secure power over the people -

Step 1: The victims pay more tax;

Step 2: They receive "benefits" to pay the tax;

Step 3: They are grateful for the 'benefits';

Step 4: They vote for the defendants."

This is an extract from Maurice Saatchi's article in today's Times entitled "Seven reasons to indict New Labour". Do read it, it is an excellent article based upon "Enemy of the People" which is published today by the Centre for Policy Studies, £10 to buy or a free pdf downloadable here.

Here's a flavour:

"How many of us claim benefits from the Government? 39 per cent of households, nearly double 10 years ago. How many people are forced to claim benefits from the Government in order to pay taxes? 21 million. How much do they claim, just to pay tax? £36 billion a year. How much of the year do the poorest people spend working just to pay tax? Until the end of July.

These facts are filed today as exhibits in an indictment against "New Labour" on seven counts of conspiracy, solicitation, attempt and incitement:

Conspiracy to enslave UK citizens by making them unnecessarily dependent on the state (Count One); Conspiracy to force UK nationals to claim benefits to pay higher taxes (Count Two); Incitement of poor people to pay more tax than rich people (Count Three); Solicitation of multiple tax revenues by stealth (Count Four); Attempt to obstruct, interfere, impair, impede and defeat the right of UK nationals to independence (Count Five); Conspiracy to provide material support and resources to mesmerise and anaesthetise UK citizens (Count Six); Attempt to conceal and/or falsely represent their true status as an enemy of the people (Count Seven)."

Do read the rest and spread the word.

And yes this was the piece that the Toady programme devoted about a minute to at the end of today's programme. Somewhat at odds with the coverage they normally give to reports from the Joseph Rowntrees of this world.

A Labour automaton interviewed

Yvette "Mrs Balls" Cooper doing what she and most Labour ministers do best, waffle and parrot the party line, whatever the question. If I had been doing the interview, I would have stopped asking questions and said "since you are not going to answer any of my questions, good night".







Thanks to Dizzy Thinks for the spot.

"Gordon Brown pays the price for dishonesty"

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Gordon Brown may be reaping what he sowed; oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Rachel Sylvester in The Telegraph writes:

"There was a fixed smile on Tony Blair's face as he sat through Gordon Brown's final Budget in the House of Commons last year.

The then prime minister had been given the customary 48 hours' notice of his Chancellor's intentions but he had not been told how Mr Brown would present the Government's tax and spending plans to Parliament and the country.

When he heard his anointed successor announcing with a dramatic flourish at the end of his speech a cut in the basic rate of income tax (a cut which was to be paid for by the abolition of the 10p rate that had been slipped out earlier) his grin froze in horror.

He returned to Downing Street, complaining that the Budget was a disaster that "played into all the worst perceptions of Gordon".

Mr Brown, Mr Blair told colleagues, was trying to pull the wool over people's eyes by giving the impression that his Budget was a tax-cutting package when it was not. The whole thing would, he predicted, soon unravel."

Of course, it has unravelled and Gordon Brown is well on the way to experiencing the deserved hatred of the majority of the population and into the record books not as a "political colossus" or "economic genius" but as an inept politician and the mastermind behind the near bankrupting of the UK. Successful and well-loved ex Prime Ministers used to awarded a title or a property by a "grateful nation". Maybe in Gordon's case the ungrateful nation could take back his state funded final salary pension, after all he has screwed up most of the UK population's pensions in one way or another.

When the Mirror attacks

I have very little time for the Mirror, I stopped paying it any attention when a previous fat Labour fraud, Bob Maxwell took it over. However this article entitled "Axe this unfair tax" has been pointed out to me. Here's an extract:

"...the abolition of the 10p tax rate was down to Mr Brown.

In his last Budget as Chancellor it was Gordon Brown who wanted to make a dramatic gesture of cutting 2p off the main rate of income tax.

It was Mr Prudence who decided to pay for it by abolishing the 10p starting rate, meaning many low-paid workers forking out more rather than less.

Labour governments should not be in the business of taxing the poor more.

It is made worse when the rich are left to exploit tax loopholes to evade what they should pay.

The growing rebellion among Labour MPs over the abolition of the 10p rate is the most dangerous yet of Mr Brown's short reign.

The Prime Minister must accept his responsibility. He must reverse an ill-thought out and unfair tax policy."

"I only do this job to help people"

"I only do this job to help people"

So said Gordon Brown during his visit to the US. Presumably he means PFI specialist companies, human rights lawyers, Labour appointed heads of quangos,large firms of City accountants etc., because he can't seriously mean the average taxpayer.

Our glorious leader continued:

"My concern every day is what's happening for the person looking for their first home, what's happening to the mortgage payer.

"That's why I'm in politics. It's about people's lives, it's about people's hopes."

That's odd because three days ago Gordon Brown's "sole focus" was keeping the economy on track. Do you think he makes it up as he goes along?

HM Revenue & Customs in fine form

I read on Sky News that "Fraud and blunders by the HM Revenue and Customs are costing British taxpayers £1bn a year. Despite thousands of complaints and promises of improvements, there is "little evidence" HMRC has got the tax credit system under control, according to a committee of senior MPs.

Some £65bn has been paid out in tax credits since their introduction in 2003."


It is my belief that Tax Credits were brought in partly because Gordon Brown is a control freak and really wants to micro-manage everything and partly because if he can get a client base of people on tax credits then he has a much better than evens chance of keeping them as Labour voters.

How will the BBC spin this in April?

The new tax year in April will see the doubling of the tax rate paid by the lowest earners in the UK. Anyone with an income of between £5,500 and £8,000 will pay tax at 20% rather than 10% on that taxable income. Another genius decision by Gordon Brown but I am sure the BBC would spin it away...

Gordon's Tax Rises

I found this on Devils Kitchen from June 2006. I wonder if anyone has managed to update this list. Makes for an interesting read, doesn't it?

Devils Kitchen says "You see, Gordon's strategy is to take as much tax from as many people as possible, and then make them fill in a lot of forms in order to try to get it back. This ensures that as many people as possible are clients of the state and, therefore, have an incentive to continue voting for this monstrous government. It is bribery, or blackmail: I can't decide which.

Either way, it is an appalling system: and yet the ovine masses continue to think that Gordon Brown is doing a good job because he gives back a fraction of the money that he has initially stolen from them..."

Spot what's missing from this BBC report

The BBC have a report that begins "Watchdog raps 'harsh' tax credits - The tax credit system is "unfair" to some of the UK's poorest families, the Parliamentary Ombudsman has said."

Take a read of the whole report and see if you can spot one detail that has been omitted..........

Who created the Tax Credits system that is "unfair"? That would be a Mr Gordon Brown, one time Chancellor of the Exchequer and now Prime Minister of the country. Why are the BBC being so coy about this? Do they not know or would they rather not remind us?

You may remember Gordon Brown, he was the proud creator of the system who when it went wrong avoided answering House of Commons questions on Tax Credits, he got one of his Treasury department team to answer in his stead.

These are the tax credits that the Commons Public Accounts Committee warned in April or May of this year suffered from the highest rates of error and fraud anywhere in Government, and complained that the Treasury had "still not developed an adequate response to the unacceptable levels of fraud and error in the scheme".


Whilst on the subject of tax credits, you might want to take a look at this article from Computer Weekly earlier this year. It details the legal settlement with IT supplier EDS over problems with tax credit system. As Richard Bacon said at Gordon Brown's first PMQs "EDS has to pay £71m in compensation to HM Revenue and Customs. £44m was up front with a further £26.5m in staged payments but at the present rate of progress it would take 106 years for the Exchequer to receive the money it is due. Does the Prime Minister think that’s a satisfactory rate of progress and if not what’s he going to do to get the money that’s owed to the taxpayer?"

I know you will be shocked by this, but Gordon Brown declined to answer the question, saying "We are talking about a commercial arrangement between a firm and the government, a commercial arrangement that was then renegotiated. The Public Accounts Committee and any other organisation is welcome to look at it but I am satisfied that we have done what is right in the public interest."


before you go, take a read of this from the Times earlier this month.