Plus ca change....

Hmm. Here is fun. Surfacing from some sort of influenza, (which I pass over quickly, for nearly everyone around me has been ill over Christmas; I was bound to get it sooner or later) - but surfacing, I discover that the Inland Revenue have thought of a new trick. A notice of new coding arrived, telling me I must pay rather more income tax than I have done so far this year. Very well; but first I will consult the accountants, so I send them a copy.

Their reply is interesting.
Quote " The revised PAYE tax code for 2010/11 is incorrect. You will notice that you now have "employer benefits" as well as "service benefit". This is a mistake made by HMRC on over 7500 Church of England clergy and it has been brought to their attention. The Church Commissioners have been told not to operate these codes and HMRC are currently rectifying the situation so that all the codes are changed back to what they were prior to the error. "

Very good; it is being sorted. But idly pondering this with no. 2 son, a rough calculation suggests the cost of this mistake - working out the new code, printing a coding notice, putting it into an envelope and paying the postage - might be something like £5.00 per clergyman, which would mean that at a probably conservative estimate the cost of the whole exercise must be something over £37,000. And then presumable the cost of rectifying it will be about the same, so in the end it will have cost the Revenue upwards of £74,000. Well, no, sorry. Not the Revenue but the taxpayer, which means the rest of us. That's all right then.

Or is it? £70 odd thousand would pay a couple of public sector salaries. Maybe more. Perhaps they will lose a couple of HMRC staff to make up for it. On second thoughts there's no chance of that. But its not a very good way of saving money to pay off that Deficit we keep hearing about - is it?

Then, just before lunch, all becomes clear. David Cameron is on the News saying, "65,000 public sector workers submitted ideas... about how money could be saved..." Perhaps the Revenue's new tax codes for clergy was one of them. Hard, though, not to agree with Mr. Cameron that "reforming public services is something that cannot be put off any longer"! Just a pity he does not seem to have HMRC in mind.

Still. I wonder, where is that Wikileaks address? I'm sure I heard they've started to take an interest in income tax......