One minute with Theresa Middleton, director of business customer and strategy at HMRC.
How did you end up in tax?
I was a PhD student at Sussex University when I decided to leave academia for the world of work. The Inland Revenue’s graduate entrant scheme was the only job in that day’s paper that I was qualified to apply for – and I’ve never looked back.
What does your role entail?
I’m responsible for developing and assuring the delivery of HMRC’s business customer strategies and ensuring that the needs of our business customers are considered in HMRC’s decision making processes.
What’s the biggest challenge on a day to day basis?
Balancing different priorities which include finding time for my team of over 400 people (especially visiting those outside of London) most of whom are in operational delivery roles; leading work on HMRC’s business customer strategy; working on Budget and Autumn Statement and managing a large network of external stakeholder relationships.
What are HMRC’s aims for the new Tax Agent Strategy (TAS)?
In line with plans for making government services ‘digital by default’ – and so convenient that anyone who can use them will choose to do so - we want to enable agents to do more online on behalf of their clients without HMRC involvement. This means that we need to be sure we can identify agent firms and their client lists accurately.
Why are you introducing it – does the current system need to change?
HMRC does not currently recognise the valuable role that agents play in helping to administer the tax system. We also need to modernise some of our processes, for example the way agents register with HMRC and obtain agent codes. At the moment a single agent firm can have multiple agent codes and references but in future we envisage that firms will only need one single agent identifier to deal with HMRC on a range of taxes.
Aren’t you just getting agents to do your work for you?
Putting agents in the driving seat will help to reduce costs for both agents and HMRC. Agents will not need to telephone or write to HMRC or ‘chase’ replies so frequently. Efficient and convenient online processes will have commercial benefits for agents as well as saving HMRC time.
Most of the changes are not being implemented for at least another two years – why is it taking so long?
‘Move slowly and get things right’ was the clear message from agents in response to the consultation, Establishing the future relationship between the tax agent community and HMRC. We expect the first new services to be rolled out during 2014/15 although it’s likely that we’ll be able to share prototypes for user testing before then.
The work that is happening now appears to be focused on ‘agent and client statistics’ (formerly known as ‘agent view’). What are these and why are they needed?
HMRC already collects information about agents and their clients’ filing, payment and compliance performance. Agent and client statistics brings that information together and enables HMRC to identify the small number of agents whose clients’ compliance is well outside the normal range. We’ll use agent and client statistics to offer support and education to help improve clients’ performance and also to identify how the best agents work.
We know that some agents are concerned about how we might use this information. This work is therefore moving on a slower track and we’ll consult with agent representative bodies about how we use agent and client statistics and their future roll-out.
What’s happening with the first pilot? How were agents selected for inclusion? When will you be able to share the results?
As a small initial test of agent and client statistics we are looking at about 60 self-assessment agents (each with a minimum of 200 SA clients) where fewer than 80% of their clients submit returns on time and/or fewer than 60% of their clients pay on time. These agents have been offered a meeting with HMRC’s agent support officers to explore why the data about their clients is outside the norm for similar firms. The results of the pilot meetings will be evaluated and shared with agent representative bodies before any further activity takes place.
What else is in the pipeline? Is there a timeline with the key dates for Tax Agent Strategy developments?
The first new online services for agents (access to the tax dashboard and an improved authorisation process) will be made available during 2014/15 and these will lay the foundations for more online opportunities in the future. HMRC’s digital strategy confirms that new online services developed for customers will also be available for their agents to use.
We will post regular updates on the tax agents’ and advisers’ pages of the HMRC website so keep an eye on these for the latest news. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/agents/strategy/overview.htm
What will agents need to do to access the new online services?
All agent firms will need to apply for a unique agent reference (UAR) when they are asked to do so. This will replace the current agent registration arrangements and we’ll let you know in good time what you need to do and when to get your UAR.
Will it be easy for agents to transfer from the old to the new system? What support will HMRC provide?
The period of transition from the old to the new services will present some challenges because we need to be sure we set up a clean and comprehensive set of agent/client relationship data in the new system. We will work with the professional bodies and with agents in practice to ensure that the process is as streamlined as possible and causes minimal disruption to agents’ business.
And finally, you might not know this about me but …
I love reading, and have just finished Hilary Mantel’s latest book, Bring up the Bodies.
Theresa Middleton is director of business customer and strategy at HMRC.
One minute with Theresa Middleton, director of business customer and strategy at HMRC.
How did you end up in tax?
I was a PhD student at Sussex University when I decided to leave academia for the world of work. The Inland Revenue’s graduate entrant scheme was the only job in that day’s paper that I was qualified to apply for – and I’ve never looked back.
What does your role entail?
I’m responsible for developing and assuring the delivery of HMRC’s business customer strategies and ensuring that the needs of our business customers are considered in HMRC’s decision making processes.
What’s the biggest challenge on a day to day basis?
Balancing different priorities which include finding time for my team of over 400 people (especially visiting those outside of London) most of whom are in operational delivery roles; leading work on HMRC’s business customer strategy; working on Budget and Autumn Statement and managing a large network of external stakeholder relationships.
What are HMRC’s aims for the new Tax Agent Strategy (TAS)?
In line with plans for making government services ‘digital by default’ – and so convenient that anyone who can use them will choose to do so - we want to enable agents to do more online on behalf of their clients without HMRC involvement. This means that we need to be sure we can identify agent firms and their client lists accurately.
Why are you introducing it – does the current system need to change?
HMRC does not currently recognise the valuable role that agents play in helping to administer the tax system. We also need to modernise some of our processes, for example the way agents register with HMRC and obtain agent codes. At the moment a single agent firm can have multiple agent codes and references but in future we envisage that firms will only need one single agent identifier to deal with HMRC on a range of taxes.
Aren’t you just getting agents to do your work for you?
Putting agents in the driving seat will help to reduce costs for both agents and HMRC. Agents will not need to telephone or write to HMRC or ‘chase’ replies so frequently. Efficient and convenient online processes will have commercial benefits for agents as well as saving HMRC time.
Most of the changes are not being implemented for at least another two years – why is it taking so long?
‘Move slowly and get things right’ was the clear message from agents in response to the consultation, Establishing the future relationship between the tax agent community and HMRC. We expect the first new services to be rolled out during 2014/15 although it’s likely that we’ll be able to share prototypes for user testing before then.
The work that is happening now appears to be focused on ‘agent and client statistics’ (formerly known as ‘agent view’). What are these and why are they needed?
HMRC already collects information about agents and their clients’ filing, payment and compliance performance. Agent and client statistics brings that information together and enables HMRC to identify the small number of agents whose clients’ compliance is well outside the normal range. We’ll use agent and client statistics to offer support and education to help improve clients’ performance and also to identify how the best agents work.
We know that some agents are concerned about how we might use this information. This work is therefore moving on a slower track and we’ll consult with agent representative bodies about how we use agent and client statistics and their future roll-out.
What’s happening with the first pilot? How were agents selected for inclusion? When will you be able to share the results?
As a small initial test of agent and client statistics we are looking at about 60 self-assessment agents (each with a minimum of 200 SA clients) where fewer than 80% of their clients submit returns on time and/or fewer than 60% of their clients pay on time. These agents have been offered a meeting with HMRC’s agent support officers to explore why the data about their clients is outside the norm for similar firms. The results of the pilot meetings will be evaluated and shared with agent representative bodies before any further activity takes place.
What else is in the pipeline? Is there a timeline with the key dates for Tax Agent Strategy developments?
The first new online services for agents (access to the tax dashboard and an improved authorisation process) will be made available during 2014/15 and these will lay the foundations for more online opportunities in the future. HMRC’s digital strategy confirms that new online services developed for customers will also be available for their agents to use.
We will post regular updates on the tax agents’ and advisers’ pages of the HMRC website so keep an eye on these for the latest news. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/agents/strategy/overview.htm
What will agents need to do to access the new online services?
All agent firms will need to apply for a unique agent reference (UAR) when they are asked to do so. This will replace the current agent registration arrangements and we’ll let you know in good time what you need to do and when to get your UAR.
Will it be easy for agents to transfer from the old to the new system? What support will HMRC provide?
The period of transition from the old to the new services will present some challenges because we need to be sure we set up a clean and comprehensive set of agent/client relationship data in the new system. We will work with the professional bodies and with agents in practice to ensure that the process is as streamlined as possible and causes minimal disruption to agents’ business.
And finally, you might not know this about me but …
I love reading, and have just finished Hilary Mantel’s latest book, Bring up the Bodies.
Theresa Middleton is director of business customer and strategy at HMRC.
