Why One Size Does Not Fit All In HMRC

 


I said here that HM Revenue and Customs is not an interchangeable hive like 'The Borg' off  of 'Star Trek', even if that's what the Cabinet Office aspires to. Senior managers, and the IT wide boys think they'll be able to make it happen, but first they'll have to make all the taxes and duties fit the same box.

Talking from personal experience, there's a big difference between SATT (Slap And Tickle Tax) and CTD (Cream Tea Duty). There's a lot of Slap And Tickle in the world, and that means a constant stream of people liable to be registered for the Tax. By comparison, there's a relatively small pool of traders need to be registered for Cream Tea Duty. But they bring in a comparative amount of money.

When it comes to registration, there are specialist teams to deal with both taxes, but with Cream Tea Duty, a compliance officer will be much more involved in getting the trader registered because there's much more needs to be confirmed about the individual circumstances (what's the recipe for the scones, is it clotted cream or whipped cream, what's the flavour of jam).

With Slap And Tickle Tax, the registration team take the lead, and a compliance officer would only get involved in exceptional circumstances. Remember, there is a greater number of people who need to be registered, but that means the questions that need to be asked are much more generalised. Some of the registration process has been automated and that means if the punter gives the right answers on their application, it can go straight through without any problems. 

On the other hand, if the answers aren't straightforward, that's when people need to get involved. And that's when you start depending on people having experience and expertise. Over the years there have been a lot of exemptions and concessions created in SATT and this means registration staff have to interpret the rules and make a judgement as to whether the punter's circumstances fit the rules. The more complex the problem, the more you relied on your staff having experience and expertise.

Over in Cream Tea Duty, there was less need for registration staff to make decisions because compliance officers did a lot of the work. In fact, at one point, an over-eager process re-engineering team told the registration team that it definitely wasn't part of their job to make decisions. 

Now, you might ask why they couldn't take the same approach in Slap And Tickle Tax, and have compliance officers deal with the registrations. But, remember, there's a much larger customer base in SATT. Compliance officers spend most of their time checking the large number of punters who are already registered. 

So, I hope I've got the idea across that - even if you're based in one of the City Citadels of the future - it wouldn't be so easy to shift a couple of staff from the Cream Tea registration unit and expect them to plug a gap in the Slap And Tickle registration unit. Not just because the specifics would be different, but because the expectations around decision-making would be different.

And the same would apply to Compliance Officers. Someone used to working in Slap And Tickle Tax would take time to adjust to Cream Tea Duty. 

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