2 Business intelligence and workload
management
Business intelligence systems
15. HMRC has not implemented the recommendations
we made in 2004 and 2009 to use risk profiling of taxpayers to
better target their collection activities. It has delayed fully
implementing a project to enable systematic analyses of debt balances
and debtor behaviours from April 2011 to October 2012.[52]
HMRC acknowledged that it is not yet making full use of its investment
in technology to analyse data. It is moving from 3,000 individual
IT systems to a "big 13 systems". It will only be able
to make full use of its data to target compliance activity effectively
when that move is complete. It also told us that by then there
would be more powerful systems on the market.[53]
Workload management
16. HMRC met its target to complete the end of year
reconciliations for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 tax years by March
2012.[54] It subsequently
cleared outstanding PAYE reconciliations relating to tax years
2003-04 to 2007-08 before its target date of December 2012.[55]
17. In November 2012 HMRC sent out letters about
changes to Child Benefit to higher rate taxpayers who may need
to join the self-assessment system. It acknowledged that the child
benefit changes would be a big change for people affected and
that it had found the implementation a challenging piece of work.
However, it asserted that it was ready for the increase in self-assessment
registrations and returns, the call centres were ready for calls,
and the website was easy to use for taxpayers who needed advice
on what to do.[56]
18. The next major change for the PAYE system is
introducing Real Time Information (RTI), where employers must
report employees' income tax and National Insurance deductions
as they pay them rather than at the year-end. The Department for
Work and Pensions' timetable to implement Universal Credit is
driving the timetable to roll-out RTI and all employers have to
be using RTI by October 2013.[57]
HMRC acknowledges that the Institute of Chartered Accounts in
England and Wales (ICAEW) and the Federation of Small Businesses
have expressed concerns that many smaller enterprises will find
the introduction of RTI onerous and many did not seem to be aware
of the new requirements. HMRC told us that it is keen to understand
where businesses have a real business dynamic that makes it hard
to do what it is asking in terms of providing information to the
Department. [58]
19. HMRC acknowledged that it still has a lot of
work to do and that the Major Projects Authority had rated the
RTI project as Amber.[59]
On the 6th November 2012, just over 2 million employment
records for 6,827 schemes had been migrated to RTI.[60]
HMRC expects close to 39 million records to have migrated by October
2013.[61] HMRC expressed
confidence that it is on track to deliver RTI by October 2013.
HMRC also does not have a contingency plan in case RTI is delayed.[62]
52 C&AG's Report, para 3.18 - 3.19 Back
53
Q 99 Back
54
C&AG's Report, para 2.10 Back
55
Qq 152-153 Back
56
Qq 122-124 Back
57
C&AG's Report, para 2.25-2.26 Back
58
Qq 126, 137-141 Back
59
Qq 116-118 Back
60
Qq 131, Ev 51 Back
61
Q 136 Back
62
Qq 145-146 Back
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