Treasury Wrote Off £11 bn In Unpaid Tax

Treasury Wrote Off £11bn In Unpaid Tax

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6:13am UK, Tuesday February 07, 2012





Revenue and Customs wrote off almost £11bn in unpaid tax in
one year, according to the first joint audit of every government
department.



The Treasury
was not fully aware of the figure until it appeared in the Whole of
Government Accounts (WGA) for 2009 to 2010, according to the Public
Accounts Committee.



The PAC said it also had "no knowledge" of whether plans were in
place to cut the taxpayer's huge £15.7bn liability for clinical
negligence claims.

We were surprised to find that Treasury did not have a grip on trends in some key areas of risk or plans for managing them.

The Public Accounts Committee











Its report on the accounts, which were compiled and published for the
first time last year. welcomed the potential of the WGA for helping the
Government identify the "risks it needs to manage".



But it declared that evidence gathered by officials suggested their
understanding of some areas of Government finance was "poor".



The MPs said: "The Treasury should use the WGA specifically to
identify key risks to public funds and ensure bodies included in the WGA
can demonstrate that they are addressing them effectively."



They added: "We were surprised to find that Treasury did not have a
grip on trends in some key areas of risk or plans for managing them."



The committee also complained that the Government had taken 20 months
to prepare the accounts, twice as long as other countries such as
France and the US.



PAC chair Margaret Hodge said the document also "currently falls
short of giving a true and fair view of the UK's financial position".











The Treasury insisted publishing the accounts was a major breakthrough





"The Treasury has departed from accounting standards by leaving out
of the accounts of such bodies as Network Rail and the publicly-owned
banks," the Labour MP said.



"This has led to the accounts being qualified by the Comptroller
& Auditor General. We want the Government to provide the necessary
information so that these accounts are comprehensive and credible."



The report highlighted massive swings in liabilities for public
sector pensions pensions and nuclear decommissioning and raised concerns
about the quality of data.



But the Treasury said the WGA represented "the most ambitious public
sector account prepared anywhere in the world" and that it was working
hard to remove the qualifications.



"No other country has sought to fully consolidate all public sector
bodies, including the local government sector, in one statement of
accounts," a spokesman said.

They hassled a friend of mine for unpaid tax until he was almost suicidal and virtually broke. Then our 'Honourable' MPs were exposed for their fraudulent expense claims from which they nearly all walked away scott free after paying pennies back from the amounts they stole. He was not a happy chappy...