CALLED TO ORDURE
MEET “JP”, the country’s new top taxman. The first parliamentary outing of John-Paul Marks, new permanent secretary at HM Revenue and Customs, did not go terribly well. You could say JP submitted an incomplete return.
Halfway through his appearance at the Treasury select committee, a story broke that HMRC had been struck by a £47m phishing sting, which forced the closure of 100,000 people’s tax accounts. If that was unfortunate timing, HMRC’s phone lines also chose that very afternoon to go phut. The entire telecoms subframe supporting HMRC lines collapsed, just after JP and his team of ace executives told the committee their telephony service to the public was going to make tremendous improvements. Enough to make a tax chap snap his pencil.