“7m caught in tax blunder,” trumpets the cover of this morning’s Daily Mail. “After a series of errors, six million will get an average £400 rebate,
while a million face demand to pay £600.”
It’s a good story — but it’s also sadly, wearily familiar. Rewind the tape to last November, and the Telegraph was running with the headline, “New HMRC tax blunder means thousands face demands to repay”. Last September, the Guardian had an article about the 10 million people who might be owed rebates. Last August … oh, you get the point. Nary a month has passed without some tale of how HMRC has screwed up once again.
The persistent problem is the department’s Pay As You Earn (PAYE) computer system — which has never been up-to-standard, but which is slowly being fixed now.
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