Digital nightmare

KEY POINTS

• The client refunded VAT to an overseas customer resulting in overpaid VAT to HMRC.
• A demand was sent to the client for outstanding VAT.
• No person at HMRC seemed able to cancel the debt.
• Complaint sent to the department.

Shortly after reading Mike Truman’s article Computers don’t argue in which he described an administrative problem that had been created entirely by HMRC’s computer systems I attended a meeting at which the department expressed its hopes and aspirations for “new digital ways of working”.

The idea is that HMRC’s systems will help taxpayers comply with their obligations and those who fail to do so will be discovered more quickly and penalised more appropriately.

The gap between HMRC’s glorious vision and the present reality is huge. I fear that something...