Friday 26 April 2013

Margaret Hodge shows she is witless fool, again.

Ban accountants from helping with complex accounting issues, that is the latest idea from Margaret Hodge who is an inept fool, well out of her depth on the Public Accounts Committee.

She has really got to me recently with her pathetic grandstanding on Google paying tax etc. Hodge is a world-class lefty hand-wringer who blames the problems on the users rather than the software to borrow some tech speak. And makes a nice lot of witless grands

The reason accountants have to advise the Government on Tax law is because it runs to 11,000 pages, that's right eleven thousand. It's a bit complicated. You do indeed need a degree from Oxbridge to understand even a bit of it. It's why even the top accountancy firms have to employ thousands of specialists.

The real issue is of course not that these accountants then abuse their position of insight to try and avoid taxes; that is merely a statement of the bleeding obvious.

No, its that by asking tax accountants to review tax law you are only going to get one answer; more tax law. For this is their bureaucratic living and as we know, bureaucracy is very keen on darwinism and seeks to expand at all times. The issue lies not with the Big 4 but with the Government itself.

So the key is not to ban experts from helping the Government, that is just silly. The key is to reduce the amount of taxation law - the person to lead this certainly needs legal and accounting advice, but they need to start from a base of trying to halve the laws.....oddly I thought this is what we employed politicians for. To be the ones who direct the experts in the right direction?

10 comments:

NielsR said...

http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/news/tax-avoidance-the-role-of-large-accountancy-firms/

Horrendous woman. The link above's got some lovely nuggets in it, but obviously she draws completely the wrong conclusion from her own arguments...

"Between them they boast 250 transfer pricing specialists whereas HMRC has only 65 people working in this area."

"Tax law is now hopelessly complex and outdated."

"The Government must take the job of simplifying our tax code seriously; yet the Office of Tax Simplification has just 6 people working in it." !!!!

Don't write rules you can't afford to police. Yes?

Woodsy42 said...

The obvious answer is to employ educated intelligent NON-specialists to rewrite tax law.
They would avoid all the jargon and pre-conceived notions and come up with a much simpler system!
And this is not intended to be completely tongue in cheek.

Anonymous said...

Agreed, physician heal thyself.

Perhaps legislators could do with some design automation tools - the sort of thing aircraft/bridge/software/silicon designers have been using for years. The quill pen approach has surely come to the end of its life. Mind you, the engineers started building these tools back in the the '60s - so the legislators have a way to go.

I have a dream, one day I will be able to call up a TaxLawyer App on my Iphone as well as a Barrister App and be able to rely (mostly) on both. Not holding my breath though.

Budgie said...

"The issue lies not with the Big 4 but with the Government itself." Exactly right. Behind every cock-up there stands a politician (or many).

And it was Gordon Brown (supported by a certain M Hodge) who doubled the size of Tolley's. And PAYE has just been complicated by RTI. Sheesh - all this is is a statist's wet dream, complete with Hodge's attempt at social control.

Anonymous said...

Death and taxes.

If you can nee beat 'em join them.

Electro-Kevin said...

@ Woodsy 42

"The obvious answer is to employ educated intelligent NON-specialists to rewrite tax law.
They would avoid all the jargon and pre-conceived notions and come up with a much simpler system!"

Better still employ a NON-educated, NON-intelligent, NON-specialist.

Then the system would be even simpler still.

Let's put it this way. It couldn't be more FUCKED UP could it !

john miller said...

Stemcor

Deloitte

Nuff said

Kynon said...

Halve it? 90% reduction would make much more sense (to me).

Flat rates of income tax across the board.
Same for Corporation Tax.
All turnover generated in the UK subject to UK corp tax.
Pension contributions deductible.

That would shaft most of the tax lawyers & accountants (and be to my personal detriment, as it happens!) but would probably result in a hell of a lot less error, obfuscation, and potential for screwing the system (IMO etc).

assurance info said...

"""" The reason accountants have to advise the Government on Tax law is because it runs to 11,000 pages, that's right eleven thousand. It's a bit complicated. You do indeed need a degree from Oxbridge to understand even a bit of it. It's why even the top accountancy firms have to employ thousands of specialists.""""

Agence communication said...

"" The reason accountants have to advise the Government on Tax law is because it runs to 11,000 pages, that's right eleven thousand. It's a bit complicated. You do indeed need a degree from Oxbridge to understand even a bit of it. It's why even the top accountancy firms have to employ thousands of specialists.
""