Oi, Hector! You're crap and it's official.

[RichardCranium]

Well who'd have guessed it? HMRC's IT systems are crap.

Tax computer system condemned as 'flawed' by MPs

The Public Accounts Committee described the implementation of a new PAYE computer system used by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) as "flawed".

It said up to 22 million people had not been taxed accurately since 2004-05 causing "unacceptable uncertainty and inconvenience".

The problems were first highlighted last September when HMRC told taxpayers that a new computer system for managing the PAYE system had revealed 6.6 million people who had overpaid or underpaid tax in the two years 2008-10.

Following public questioning of senior HMRC officials, the MPs said that a backlog of a further 15 million people on the PAYE system have still not had their tax affairs settled for the years 2004-05 to 2007-08.

In January 2010, the HMRC discovered it had mistakenly issued nearly 26 million new tax codes to taxpayers, almost twice as many as it had been expecting.

"The department [HMRC] knew that seven million people had overpaid or underpaid tax in 2008-09 but took no action and did not start informing individuals until September 2010 because of problems with the new computer system," said Mrs Hodge.

Owing to a new, reduced, four-year deadline on collecting tax introduced in 2008, an estimated £650m in tax that was underpaid in the three years from 2004-05 to 2006-07 could not be hauled in.

The MPs estimate that, based on information from the Revenue, about £1.4bn was underpaid in 2004 to 2008, while at the same time £3bn was overpaid.

Then, when the new system was in operation between 2008-2010, 4.3 million people overpaid £2bn while 1.4 million people underpaid £1.8bn.

That's what you get for using EDS.

And for being crap.

[Mich the Tester]

Same old tulipe here in Holland. Back in 2002-3 there was a big dip in the contract market, there were loads of people on the bench and the tax office used the situation to force their suppliers to provide people at low rates, with the first two weeks for free. Consequence was that the big consultancies dumped the people they could miss at the tax office and only the most desperate contractors took up the offer. In the space of a couple of years, the best IT systems in the country became steaming piles of dung and the maintenance costs exploded. They started doing the same thing again in 2008/9, and now there are increasing complaints about the tax office again. As Samuel Johnson said, "plenty, indeed, produces cheapness, but cheapness always ends in negligence and
depravation".