Just who is he kidding on tax?

10:46am Saturday 17th May 2008

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Chancellor announces tax cuts - who is he kidding now? Is the great British public so naive as to fall for this ridiculous spin?

The MPs that made such a noise about this in the first place are a disgrace to their party.

The abolition of the ten per cent rate was tabled in the 2007 Budget - what excuse do they have for making such a fuss about it now? I knew what the effect would be.

These MPs have let down their party by creating such a backlash so late in the day, and being too short-sighted or too lazy to comprehend the Budget.

The massively increased financial burdens far outweigh the benefits of this tax cut. Alistair Darling's advisors should try living in the real world with people that have to deal with this contradictory legislation.

Effects on HMRC:

• it will have to rewrite and reissue thousands of tax tables
• employer CDs will need to be reproduced
• software programming needs to undertaken in a short space of time
• new tax codes must be issued for all employees.

Business effects:

• small employers are likely to fail to implement this change, meaning records will be incorrect when filed, leading to massive time spent by HMRC and tax advisors sorting out this mess
• software providers will have to rewrite software
• tax manuals relating to this year will need to be rewritten
• hundreds of professionals have paid for budget reports, tax data cards and websites, that are now incorrect
• NI bands will now remain unaligned.

Mr Darling should get better advisors and stick to the decision made by his predecessor, and MPs should listen to the Budget.

This is politics at its worst, playing for votes.

If I didn't have to spend so much of my time sorting out the problems created from the absurd tax legislation, I'd run for office - it would not be difficult to do a better job.

Michelle Thirsk, FCCA ATT FMAAT, Partner CGA, Park Court, Riccall Road, Escrick, York.