The HMRC is in the firing line again. This time for sending out menacing letters to people who don’t owe any tax.
A month or so ago, I mentioned my own difficulties with this repugnant, thuggish organisation and its willingness to steal my property for money that I didn’t actually owe. Well, I’m not the only one to suffer this offence.
“These letters appear to have been widely used without sufficent[sic] thought to whom they were sent to, even being sent to people who did not actually owe money,” the report said. “We recommend that HMRC take steps to ensure such hard-hitting correspondence is used in a more proportionate way.”
I didn’t get a letter, I got a visit from their collection department, which was even more disturbing and caused me some sleepless nights and severe stress at a time when I am struggling to recover from the financial disaster of a failed business. These people are entirely unsympathetic and are nothing more than leeches feeding off ordinary people who go out and do productive work.
A spokesman for HMRC, which has been plagued with problems in recent years, said that it had been sending letters to people who owed tax “since the Napoleonic wars”.
Wickedness combined with rank incompetence. Lovely.
MPs had gathered evidence from taxpayers and accountants as well as the tax office itself for the report. They found that there is “considerable dissatisfaction” among the public and tax professionals over the service provided by HMRC. “If this continues, it may undermine respect for the tax system,” MPs concluded.
HMRC doesn’t provide a service. It provides extortion with menaces and deserves contempt, not respect.
Repeat after me; the state is not your friend, the state is not your friend, the state is not your friend…
If you think that’s bad, god forbid you should experience the UKBA/HMRC at the borders preying on legitmate cross-border shoppers! They condemn you as a smuggler based on nothing more than hearsay and their own prejudices … then seize your goods anf if you are unfortunate enough to have taken your car with you, they invariably seize that too despite the EU ruling that it is wrong to do so.
You won’t hear anything from any MP’s about this practice though which goes on continuously day-in day-out. There is no attempt whatsoever to seperate the legitimate cross-border shopper from the smuggler even though it is quite easy to do so.
UKBA don’t threaten to rob you … they do it!
So far, I’ve never been stopped by them. Once by the police asking about my French registered RHD car – but it was almost as if he felt the need to be seen to be doing something.
l hope it continues for you.
“If this continues, it may undermine respect for the tax system,” MPs concluded. ❗
What respect?
Bottom line is very simple, SH, you have not committed an offence until you try and sell some thing upon which the appropriate duty / tax has not been paid. The UKBA / HMRC actions at UK points of entry is complete and utter bollocks as it is based on their presumption that you will commit such an offence. That the UK government turns a blind eye to this clear case of assumed guilt is a disgrace and proves L’s point, the state is most certainly not your friend.
Very little is said and nothing acknowledged by them for the real level of stress caused to people who often turn out to be innocent. To me, this borders on criminal – cruel and unusual punishment. It’s been a very rough time on you of late.
It’s not been brilliant. However, an interview last week and another next week is a step in the right direction. After nothing for over six months, something positive. Something’s got to happen sooner or later.
Good luck with that LR.
Re: UKBA, I must have an “IRA face” as they always seem to stop me. Maybe I should grow my dreadlocks back – they never bothered me when I had them.