Battle of the taxes – HMRC infographic Jan 2017
And every year the sound of groans can be heard emanating from this and other offices across the UK. The figures on which HMRC makes its annual pronouncement on the ‘battle of the taxes’ don’t stand up to close analysis.
At face value HMRC’s figures show that men, for the second year running, were more likely than women to complete their tax return on time – but, crucially in our view, only just. The figures make for a great infographic but HMRC has avoided trying to explain the story behind the stats.
So in bald terms, in 2014-15, 235 late tax returns for every 10,000 were submitted by women, but for every 10,000 tax returns submitted by men, only 232 were late.
Breaking the figures down further HMRC also found that:
- those aged over 65 showed the younger generation how it’s done, with only 104 per 10,000 tax returns received late. A huge 833 for every 10,000 sent in by 18-20 year olds was overdue
- customers (oh how we hate that word being used by HMRC) living in Northern Ireland were once again the most likely to submit their tax return promptly, with 178 for every 10,000 submitted late, followed by Wales (205 per 10,000). Scotland and England lagged behind, coming joint third with 233 per 10,000 each
- as a whole, the UK submitted only 230 late returns for every 10,000 in 2014-15
- the data showed within industry, those working in Agriculture, Fishing and Forestry topped the leaderboard once again with just a tiny 62 in every 10,000 submitting late returns. Second and third places went again to Lawyers and Accountants (106 late returns per 10,000) and Financial, Insurance and Real Estate (156 per 10,000)
- those working in the Administrative and Support Services remain in bottom place (296 per 10,000), behind Other Industries (260 per 10,000), and Information and Communication was the next worst performing sector (250 per 10,000).
All interesting figures but what lies behind them? Whilst we’d never encourage anyone to miss an HMRC deadline there may have been good reason for late filing. The figures don’t tell us whether HMRC in fact agreed there was good reason, they don’t state whether any of those late filers received a penalty or appealed and won against any such decision.
Were there personal circumstances which came into play that tend to apply to women more than men? Were they pregnant or indeed balancing work with child care responsibilities or maybe they were busy prioritising the filing returns for other people first. Maybe they fall into the category of working in the information and communication sector and are under 20.
The big question really is how relevant is all this data in terms of understanding how people prioritise meeting the requirements of a government body which is not always viewed as being efficient and effective? What’s HMRC’s plan to address the serious underlying implications of their analysis beyond producing infographics that the media, both traditional and online, will lap up and send viral? Hands up we plead guilty to adding to the digital noise around this subject.
Ultimately such analysis is open to interpretation and debate as are the solutions to ensuring tax owed is paid on time. HMRC, or rather their PR team, can take comfort in knowing that they have been successful in generating awareness of the need to file tax returns on time. Oh and perhaps unsurprisingly for a tax consultancy business all our team, female and male members alike, will be ensuring that they’re meeting that all important deadline.
We hope you don’t ever get to a point of needing to appeal a penalty from HMRC or face an investigation into your tax affairs, but if you do get in touch, we maybe able to help.
