Time for HMRC to get its priorities right

Back in 1968, as a young graduate, I had a job offer to join the Tax Inspectorate on just over ￡1,000 a year. I was told that I could look forward to joining our local US owned multi-national before I was 30, on ￡30,000 a year, as a fully qualified tax inspector. Until then my job would be to explain to immigrants who had never paid tax that they could not claim a rebate and identify half a dozen local small businesses a year for ritual crucifixion - to frighten the others into submission.

Today with global multi-nationals and billionaires still paying little or no tax, protected by armies of accountants (many former HMRC employees) it appears little has changed in the mindset of those organising the latest consultation on IR35. They still seem to see SMEs and soles contractors as black marketeers - "outside the system" - just like those at top.

But much has changed.

The proportion of the population with "safe" jobs for life (for whom PAYE makes sense) has dropped below that of those with short term see-saw earnings, for whom it does not. IR35 has more than doubled the cost of IT consultancy to Central Government - with tasks previously done flexibly and incrementally by "families" of independents supporting in-house team now inflexibly procured through a cartel of large consultancies and outsourcing operations.

No wonder the majority of voters are now revolting - against Whitehall as well as Brussels. Hence my recent blog (on When IT Meets Politics) about an existential threat to the "establishment".

Interestingly the wedding yesterday indicates that the Royal Family appears to have taken that threat (and the need for a global, multi-cultural perspective) rather more to heart than the EU-fixated post liberal intelligentsia. When will HMRC change its priorities and focus on fair tax rates applied to all, not just on those forced to make a living as sole contractors after being redundant from trimmed down and outsourced organisiations - public and private.