stunning! usually if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck, but in the occult world of HMRC it might just as well be squirrell like a duck (SLAD), and probably attracts tax at 17.5%
i suppose if folks started arguing that payments like a payment (PLAPS) could not be PLOPS and recovered under section 28, they would pull another rabbit out of the hat...section 16 of the necromancers, alchemists and charlatans (the bank always wins) infallibity act 1563 or somesuch...
there are probably welfs all over the country refusing to budge from under their desks, sobbing and making a teary mess, crying, No...i'm not going to come out if i've got to start arguing about PLOPS and PLAPS and POOPIES... well ok, maybe i'm projecting...
but seriously, the government is big on what it terms 'rights and responsibilities', but the most responsible claimant in the world doesn't stand a chance with this lot...
i would like to kill the oft repeated myth that the tax credit system of annual awards is designed to provide maximum flexibility for tax credit claimants - counter intuitive as it may be for politicians, weekly rate awards give much more flexibilty than annual awards.
flexibility and responsiveness to changing circumstances is needed for low income claimants who are dependant on prompt, regular, _predictable_ and stable payments in order to manage their budgets and make decisions about their lives.
the flexibility in annual awards is on the side of the administrators...and HMRC's IT beneficiaries du jour...
the tax credit system was never going to have the simplicity of the old family credit system with its 6 month awards unaffected by many changes basis - on costs grounds...but the dungeons and dragons attempt to fine tune entitlement is a nightmare for the very poorest, and seems to have been designed by people without a clue of any of the social justice principles established within the social security system...or maybe gamers who have given themselves a cloak of 'you can't see me or touch me' immunity...
we might complain about the complexities of the income support legislation, and the select commitee or NAO might demand simplification of benefit rules, but in comparison to tax credits, the legislation is a lesson in coherence...at least, no fears that it was written by alistair crowley, channelled in an HMRC automatic writing seance...
the writing is on the wall for tax credits being a much bigger disaster than CSA, and a coherent radical re-draft of the legislation might be the most economical kick start to the task of turning the current dross into something 'fit for purpose'...
as for HMRC's insistence on no right of appeal, what's their problem with the discipline of providing submissions establishing 'no jurisdiction' for the tribunals to reject or not...? your client wouldn't have got any sort of a fair hearing or fair outcome left to their own devices, and it is much better that they get used to the idea that they are not the pope. imho. : )
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