Accountex summary: HMRC’s Strategic Vision

On the 10th of May at Accountex London, Jonathan Athow, Director General, Customer Strategy and Tax Design at HMRC took to the main stage to discuss ‘HMRC’s Strategic Vision: Today, Tomorrow, Together’. 

HMRC provided an update on the progress in delivering transformational and innovative changes to the tax system – helping them become a truly digital organisation with easier and simpler services for accountants and customers. 

HMRC’s strategic objectives 

• Collect the right tax and pay out the right financial support 
• Make it easy to get tax right and hard to bend or break the rules. 
• Maintain taxpayers’ consent through fair treatment and protect society from harm. 
• Make HMRC a great place to work. 
• Support wider government economic aims through a resilient, agile tax administration system. 

In the corporate report published in July 2020, HMRC outlined a clear strategic direction to digital services. 

Building a trusted, modern tax administration system 

• Making tax digital
• Single customer account – a new way for people to interact with HMRC 
• Real-time information 
• Timely payments 
• Improved standards in tax advice market 
• Modernise tax administration framework so it’s fit for the digital future.
   

Today: moving to digital channels 

For 2021-2022 HMRC had 138 million integrations through their digital channels, compared to 54 million inbound interactions through post and phone calls. 

Although this is a huge number, their goal is to encourage most people to use HMRC’s digital channels. 

Tomorrow: A Digital-First Organisation 

Three main drivers 

• Cost – be efficient and stay inside HMRC’s budget 
• Compliance 
• Customer satisfaction 

 Compliance 

Customer satisfaction 

HMRC encourage people to download the HMRC app which currently has 4.8 stars out of 5.  

• Helps you comply with your tax obligations 
• Allows interaction with HMRC and communications 
• Gives users notices to file etc. 

For some businesses there are wider benefits 

Making Tax Digital for VAT  

‘The biggest positive change is I am intuitively more in touch with my finances. That has been the beneficial outcome of Making Tax Digital.’ ‘Now all my receipts and invoices are just automatically linked to [software package] for me and I just need to look down on [software package], have a glance over everything, make sure there’s nothing out of place. It’s just all there, it’s just so simple.’ 

Together: Part of a Healthy Tax System 

High quality tax advice supports the efficient working of the tax system and helps people to get their taxes right. 

HMRC are working towards stopping taxpayers and people being exploited and the tax system undermined. 

HMRC Main External Forums 

HMRC are trying to be as open and transparent as possible and want to work together and share ideas with these main groups. 

Summary  

Today – HMRC and managing immediate challenges and making the most of existing digital services. There is a huge pressure on customer service, and they are not meeting the customer service standards which they’ve set. They are trying to navigate that by making the most of their digital services and encouraging people to use those digital channels. 

Tomorrow – Making the most of the opportunities from new and expanded digital services and other technologies.  

Together – Working with all stakeholders and intermediaries to create a healthy tax system for the future. Recognising that they are part of the tax system but they need to work together with a wide variety of intermediaries and experts on the tax system.  

The post Accountex summary: HMRC’s Strategic Vision appeared first on Accounting Insight News.