There is considerable dissatisfaction among tax practitioners around how HMRC in the UK enforces its regime on tax filers.

The UK revenue authority does not act consistently in applying behavioural penalties and it is too fast to think that a taxpayer has failed to take reasonable care, a survey by the Chartered Institute of Taxation and Association of Taxation Technicians says, according to Tax-News.com.

This publication has contacted both organisations seeking further details; they had not responded at the time of going to press.

The bodies surveyed their members in February this year and 462 members responded, with data suggesting that HM Revenue & Customs must address a variety of concerns. Respondents supported penalties for late filing but queried the application of late filing penalties where there is little or no tax at stake or where the taxpayer has overpaid. Participants also criticised the attitude of some HMRC staff members when conducting compliance inquiries, the report said.

The organisations said the process used by HMRC must more clearly distinguish between deliberate tax evaders and those who are careless or confused.

The report said only 23.9 per cent of respondents had experienced HMRC's internal statutory review process. Of these persons, 52.9 per cent found the process fair and reasonable but there was general annoyance with the process, the report added.

(Editor’s note: It is particularly important that revenue authorities distinguish more clearly between case where a person deliberately cheats the tax system and where a person makes an error, or doesn’t understand what to do – hardly a remote issue given the sometimes horrendous complexity of today’s tax code. This comes on top of how, partly for political reasons as well as more legitimate legal ones, the distinction between tax evasion and tax avoidance is also blurred.)