Last night's Tonight programme on ITV illustrated the understandable distress caused when HM Revenue and Customs has made mistakes resulting in people being made bankrupt unnecessarily. The programme, having obtained figures under freedom of information laws, alleged that the problem was bigger than HMRC's Dave Hartnett suggested. Hartnett defended HMRC, a very large organisation that gets it right in "the vast majority" of cases. But the programme raises some real concerns. Does HMRC have its priorities right? Is it going for the easy targets?
Another thing. Hartnett told the programme that "... our customers appreciate what we do". This still jars whenever I hear it. Several people have already objected, in response to the programme, to being called customers. HMRC deals with "people", some of whom are taxpayers and some of whom are tax credit or child benefit claimants. Lots of people are all of these ... They cannot take their "custom" elsewhere. They are "people", and perhaps HMRC should try using that word more often.
