How to avoid bunglers at the Revenue

How to avoid bunglers at the Revenue

I won't bore you with my views about the complete uselessness and incompetence of HM Revenue and Customs, which failed to learn any lessons from two previous data losses in September and October. Instead, I would like to point out to prospective parents who may, quite understandably, feel nervous about signing up for child benefit following this debacle, that there is a very simple way around the issue of providing HMRC with your current account details.

It will only work with savings accounts run by institutions (such as the Skipton building society, which told me about this) that are not clearing banks. You can elect to have your child benefit paid straight into a savings account. This means that, instead of having to supply your own current account number and sort code to the HMRC and anyone it cares to share that information with, you provide the number and sort code of the bank account used by your savings institution, plus the reference number of your own savings account. Much harder to crack for your average fraudster.

The government has made lots of serious mistakes in its long and tortuous introduction of the home information pack (Hip), but last week it got something right.

On Thursday, housing minister Yvette Cooper announced that Hips would be required for all properties put up for sale from 14 December. Up to now, only people selling homes with three or more bedrooms had to commission a report.

The phased introduction has caused.....continued below

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considerable problems for those who have set up businesses to package Hips, or have trained to carry out energy performance certificate assessments. More worryingly for homebuyers and sellers, it has enabled those who are opposed to the packs to make all sorts of negative - and usually completely speculative - statements about the scheme and its effects on the housing market.

The only way to stop all of this is to introduce Hips for everyone. Roll on 14 December.

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