BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks

Subject: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 12:41 PM

I'm actually beyond words on this one...

Seriously Scary - BBC News youtube

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 12:52 PM

Now, this I just don't believe! Is it April 1st?

I should think it would not even be possible- in a population of 100 million, there would be at least 300,00 working/drawing a paycheck. And with all the loopholes and legitimate exemptions there is simply no way an agency could have a high rate of accuracy.

Not to mention, every one of the people at that agency is human- and humans make errors.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 12:59 PM

This is where you go to comment on the HMRC site, about this horrendous and scary idea..

Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs
HMRC site

And here is the Radio 4 page, where you can 'contact' them to leave your comments, as they were requesting in the interview link above.
BBC Radio 4 - Money Box - Contact page


So picture this. Your wages are not paid into your bank account. You, along with 40 MILLION others, are trying to get through to the HMRC...who do not answer the phones..(as ever)...

What do you do?
Where do you go?
Who do you turn to?

Not only that, but the ONLY way you have of checking your tax deductions etc, is by going online.

So WHAT do you do if you have no computer????

WHAT do you do if one day, there is no power left to power any computers???????

It's bad enough that most of us in this country get paid monthly into our bank accounts, rather than in cash, weekly, as it used to be, but this is MADNESS. Total madness......

This could see all or many of us with no wages at all at the end of a month's work....??????

And we are supposed to trust the HMRC when they've already admitted to the most appalling fuck up of taxes in the universe...refusing to apologise for one iota of it..AND expecting people to cough up 'alleged' amounts they're told they owe the tax man with NO proof at all, in a matter of weeks!?????

...and of course, anyone who's been overpaid may well have to wait months and months to get any money due to them paid back...

We have lost it as a country, I'm afraid, if we do not come out on the streets over this one...HOW dare they ensure that THEY are in charge of our bank accounts...and they'll have the bank a/c number of every single person in this country...

Bloody Hell!

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 01:00 PM

What's the present system?

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 01:01 PM

That should be underpaid, not overpaid, above.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: olddude
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 01:01 PM

Heck nothing surprises me anymore. Look at it this way, in the states if you deposit an amount over 10,000 dollars the bank immediately through electronic means notifies the IRS .. (not that I have 10K to deposit) :-) so yes the government does have access to bank accounts right now indirectly here is the US at least

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 01:06 PM

Ring them up and give them hell!   I've just tried, but they're not there until tomorrow...

Conservative Phttp://mudcat.org/blickifier.cfmarty contact details

Please pass the details of this thread on to as many folks as you possibly can, because the time has come to stand up and say "Enough!!"

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 01:14 PM

And the "consultation period" ends on Thursday...

They put it out "for consultation" on 27th July - but they managed to keep it quiet until now. Partly because we've got such an incompetant media. Perhaps the government might have done better to hold it up and issue the consultation document on April 1st.

Now if Labour had put this out just imagine the reaction.

Anyway here's a link to the online consultation, for what it's worth - Discussion document on improving the operation of Pay As You Earn (PAYE)

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: Emma B
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 01:18 PM

New proposals (note 'proposals') from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) could (note 'could') take the power to calculate employees' tax away from employers and give it to a centralised tax system.

HMRC have released a discussion paper on potential improvements to the pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) system.

It states: "Under centralised deductions the employer would send the gross payment through the electronic payment system to a central calculator where the deductions calculated by HMRC would be made automatically. The resulting net payment would then be sent to the individual's bank account and the deductions would be paid directly to the Government."

The discussion paper is available on the HMRC website

In the UK Ebbie tax liabilities are currently calculated by employers based on the income they earn in that particular job

"Should someone receive income from more than one source – an employee doing several part-time jobs or a pensioner receiving a couple of pensions and investment income, for example – HMRC later reconciles the information it has received about an individual's earning to check that he or she has paid the correct amount of tax.
This should normally take place soon after the end of the relevant tax year, but HMRC has admitted in the past two weeks that it has fallen behind with such reconciliations

The proposal stressed that at no stage would HMRC or its agents have direct access to any money or information contained in a taxpayer's bank account."

HMRC considers 'centralising' tax system
- a slightly less 'dramatized' account than some other headlines

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: Richie Black (misused acct, bad email)
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 01:27 PM

It seems fair enough to me.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: olddude
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 01:31 PM

"let me tell you how it will be
here's one for you 19 for me
cause I am tax man .. oh yea I'm the tax maaaan
and your working for no one but me"

- Beatles

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: Emma B
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 01:41 PM

Tax advisory firms flagged this up shortly after the release of the consultation paper like this one from July 30th

"Following on from an announcement in the June 2010 Budget, HMRC has initiated a consultation process regarding some options to overhaul radically the current PAYE system.
Firstly, they consider using "Real Time Information", which means employers would provide data to HMRC on pay and deductions every time an employee is paid instead of just reporting at the end of the tax year.
The idea is to enable HMRC to issue a tax code to ensure that the employee pays the correct amount of tax/NIC throughout the year without the need to make significant adjustments after the tax year has ended.
It is envisaged that the employer would benefit by removing the need for employers to have to complete forms P45 and P46 for starters/leavers and it will also simplify the year end reporting process."

more....

"Combined with real-time information, this could reduce the employer burden by up to £500m and result in more accurate tax deductions, especially for those for whom PAYE currently works less well – pensioners, agency workers and those with several jobs. There could also be a significant reduction in the cost of administering PAYE for HMRC."


But McGrath is quite right in identifying the press were slow to pick this up - it was hardly a 'secret'

Now the usual tabloids have been equally keen to give, what are still proposals, an Orwellian scenario

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: greg stephens
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 01:47 PM

I hope they dont apply it to self-employed folkies living from hand to mouth. I imagine it would take quite a while for the revenue to process £58.50 from the ticket money and £30.75 from the raffle at a folk club, and eventually put my cut in my bank

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 02:12 PM

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

If *this* does not get the British people out on the streets, then I give up!

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: Wesley S
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 02:22 PM

I think you ought to give it a try. You know the government has your best interests at heart. "Be calm and carry on". Isn't that what Churchill used to say? If you love your country you'll go along with it.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 02:46 PM

I suspect that the target is those dodgy employers that deduct tax, NI and pension contributions then don't hand them over.

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: Emma B
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 03:00 PM

"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."

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 03:09 PM

I always got a pay cheque!
Are we now being paid in US dollars?

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 03:16 PM

Pedant.. ;0) x

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 03:18 PM

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

Yes.

My 'impressions' usually turn out to be right in the end, as does my instinct..and my instinct, in this matter, is saying "Holy Shite!" at the top of its' voice.

And cue cut and paste as to how impressions and instincts are not to be relied upon.....

;0)

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: Emma B
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 03:34 PM

"Are we now being paid in US dollars?"

not really - just a side effect of 'cut and paste' a thread title from the net :)

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 07:10 PM

Yup, there's a lot of it about ☻

Subject: RE: BS: UK Government to take over all paychecks
From: GUEST,Big Blue
Date: 22 Sep 10 - 07:19 PM

The international center is Belgium

It has been since 1953

When big banks fail

The winner is big government