"I get the impression that *no-one* will be exempt, should they go ahead with this..."

Would it really be too radical to suggest reading the proposals rather than 'getting an impression'?

The proposals apply to those employees who are currently covered by the PAYE system which ran into difficulties this year outlined in another thread - some have argued due to staff cutbacks/'savings'

Personally, I'm inclined to agree with many of the views expressed in the comments following the Guardian article which overwhelmingly oppose the proposals for a variety of operational reasons, rather than any scary 'Big Brother' grounds.

Such as the observation that -

"for the past twenty years and more all large IT systems are provided installed and run by private companies who have been given the job of running them by the government.
When I worked for a large government department back in the early eighties a large computer system was installed and run by a private company and that was the way it went in all the other departments of the organization I worked for. The same at DVLC, NHS, Inland Revenue, Health and whatever department you look at. So the idea that it is government that cannot run these things is very much wide of the mark."

or
"At the present, if a business has difficulty finding funds to meet its payroll or in the mechanics of processing it that effects of that difficulty are confined to the business, its employees and those who depend on them.
Put it all through any central agency and there is the spectre of a crashed UK economy if it goes wrong."