This email was sent to Money Box subscribers on 5 June 2010

Dear Listener

You can’t trust Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, and that’s official. Or at least its data. Or to be more specific its pensions data. Or to be really fair (and when am I not?) some bits of its pensions data that are used internally. Here is what HMRC told pensions provider A J Bell in response to a freedom of information request.

 

“PSS [pension scheme services] was experiencing systems difficulties in collating intermediate level of detail in some areas. It is clear from your email and further testing…that these problems may be more widespread. Our IT partners are currently investigating this but it means the data we have already provided should not be relied on….I must advise you that until we are comfortable the data we produce is correct, it would be wrong to provide further summaries which may present a misleading and unreliable picture.”

 

This letter is about statistics on the amounts individuals have put into pension schemes and whether they have breached the rules about the maximum amounts that can be put in. So it is a bit obscure. And since that letter was written HMRC has told Money Box “The specific issues referred to relate to the production of internal statistical information and do not affect the accuracy of any of the data held in the system, live running of the system, or have any impact on external users.”

 

But we already know (see earlier Money Box programmes) that HMRC computer systems do get some things wrong that do affect ‘external users’ ie you and me. Not least tax codes (see ditto). So, however specific and obscure or even resolved the current problems may or may not be, it is always sensible to check everything you receive from HMRC. Because if it is wrong you may end up paying too much tax.

 

In this week’s Money Box

 

***You might think that with up to 30 million gallons of crude pumped straight out of the ground into the Mexican Gulf and threats of action by the US President, the oil firm BP would not be too worried about the activities of a pension scheme for the employees of the West Lothian Council. But pension schemes – and all of us who are members of one – could be the big financial losers from the environmental catastrophe in the Mexican Gulf. And Lothian Pension Scheme started suing BP after it spilt a relatively modest quarter of a million gallons of crude into Alaska’s Prudhoe Sound in March 2006. Now, it will tell Money Box, its hand has been strengthened by recent events. And we discover that other pension funds, all losing money from the crisis, may be joining in.

 

***Since last week’s item on a private website which took money for providing an EU health card that is given free by the Department of Health our in-box has been flooded with other examples. This week we will look at the firm which charges £11.69 to print off your child benefit application form and post it back to you. And we talk to a senior Conservative MP about what – if anything – can be done about such sites.

 

***how will they/how won’t they implement the promised changes to capital gains tax? The battle rages inside the coalition government about who exactly should pay more tax as a result of the promise to increase the rate this tax on the gains made when you buy something and later sell it. We look at what the alternatives are and speculate about what we might actually see when the changes are announced in the Budget on 22 June.

 

***And we talk to the listener who wanted to extend his house but when he tried to extend his mortgage to cover the cost he was refused. The lender said that the value of the property would be reduced while the work was being done – and what if it had to repossess it in that state?

 

There may be more there may be less but it is always worth listening to Money Box at noon on Saturday, at nine pm on Sunday, or at any time on the website www.bbc.co.uk/moneybox. There you can also watch videos, follow up items, read web pieces, download transcripts, follow links, and send us stories or ideas you want us to look into. And Have Your Say on Capital Gains tax – and last week’s HYS on picking your way between official and unofficial websites is still available for your comments. 

 

Best wishes,

 

 

 

 

Paul

 

PS don’t forget the programme trail on Breakfast on BBC 1 between 0845 and 0900 on Saturday.

 

 

 


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