#businesses being pushed into administration is on the rise, but perhaps most interestingly the agent of bankruptcy in a large number of cases is the #HMRC.
While other creditors may find it hard to enforce repayments on troubled firms facing multiple challenges, from the #costoflvingcrisis to #energy prices hikes, the state (in the form of the #tax inspectors) has all the powers it needs to get itself at the front of the queue of creditors... a sign of the times?
Many years ago, just after the Y2K problems had (or in some cases hadn't been) solved, I couldn't find any computer contract work in the UK as most companies had exhausted their IT budgets fixing Y2K. I was offered work in Brussels so I took it.
Anyone who has done it, will know that moving from one country to another is highly stressful and very disruptive. Somehow, in the process of doing that I forgot to put in a tax return and in due course I was contacted by someone claiming to be the inland revenue. In fact it was that lowest, foulest scum of the earth, a firm of debt collectors! The were working for the Inland Revenue but the way they phrased their spiel, they made it sound like they were from the HMRC. More or less every time they phoned, I said I was unable to pay the sum they were asking for immediately but would be happy to pay the sum off monthly which offer they invariably refused, parroting the phrase "if you don't pay immediately, we will bankrupt you". This went on for several years.
They kept on adding sums to what I owed them including adding tax 'estimates' for years when I hadn't even been living in the UK; finally they sent local bailiffs to my house in Belgium. When I spoke to my accountant in the UK about it he said they are claiming you owe them £50,000+, in reality you owe them less than £10,000 however the time I will need to spend to prove that to them will cost you another £5,000, so do you have around £15,000 looking for a home as, if not, I'd bankrupt yourself then you don't owe them a penny piece.
That's exactly what I did and, as the High Court of England have no jurisdiction outside the UK I was never obliged to pay them a single penny!
The thing that really annoys me is that I offered repeatedly to pay by instalments and that offer was refused not by HMRC but by the foul scum working for the debt collectors pretending to be HMRC. By the time, found out that the debt collectors were not, in fact HMRC it was too late, they had already put the bailiffs in; that left me with no choice other than bankruptcy.
However, my accountant at the time said that HMRC are frequently irrational, stupid and stubborn. They often refuse offers of arrangements to pay even when it is abundantly clear that the exchequer would be far better off accepting such an arrangement than by bankrupting the debtor. I'm sure in many cases this is exactly what is happening today!
Many years ago when I was sorting out the mess my father had go the family company into, I had to settle an outstanding with Customer & Excise as was...
They refused to accept payment by instalments, but each month Is sent them a cheque for a fraction of the debt, with a covering letter.
Each month I got a polite letter enclosing a receipt, detailing the amount still overdue & a statement that they didn't accept payment in instalments... each month the same for tow years!
@ChrisMayLA6 @Paulos_the_fog My understanding is that since the pandemic lockdowns HMRC has been prepared to negotiate payments by instalment for companies suffering the triple hits of rising costs, Brexit and Covid, but maybe their patience is wearing thin. Is this as a result of pressure from a Treasury short of cash, or just HMRC doing its own thing in another case of un-joined-up Government?
In terms un un-joined-up government, the British civil service has to be one of the worst in the entire civilized world. In my dealings with them, I have found them to be consistently fückin clueless and often staffed by vindictive arseholes and that applies across the full range of services offered by HMG from Pensions (they lost numerous years of my contributions then asked me if I had kept pay-slips from the 1960s and 1970s - wankers!). HMRC are likewise hopelessly incompetent and vindictive. I'm sure no one needs to hear about the appalling suffering inflicted by the benefits system and their contracted parner ATOS.
