An article on CNBC reports: “The UK’s tax collection agency is putting forth a proposal that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, after which the government would deduct what it deems as the appropriate tax and pay the employees by bank transfer. The proposal by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) stresses the need for employers to provide real-time information to the government so that it can monitor all payments and make a better assessment of whether the correct tax is being paid. Currently employers withhold tax and pay the government, providing information at the end of the year, a system know as Pay as You Earn (PAYE). There is no option for those employees to refuse withholding and individually file a tax return at the end of the year. If the real-time information plan works, it further proposes that employers hand over employee salaries to the government first.”
And who wouldn’t mind the government getting its hands on ALL of you salary and delaying payday several days at a time when many people are living paycheck to paycheck?
The CNBC article notes “…The chance of widespread mistakes could be high…HMRC does not have a good track record of handling large computer systems and has suffered high-profile errors with data…The system would be massive in terms of data management, larger than a recent attempt to centralize the National Health Service’s data, which was later scrapped.”
So your paycheck might just “disappear” thanks to the butterfingers of some government bureaucrat or they might deduct way too much, leaving you with a fraction of what you should have gotten.
The article goes on “If there’s a mistake and the HMRC collects too much money, the difficulty of getting it back could be high with repayments of tax taking weeks or months….HMRC estimated the potential savings to employers from the introduction of the concept would be about £500 million ($780 million)…But the cost of implementing the new system would be phenomenal…There is a further concern…The centralized storage of so much data poises a security risk as the system may be open to cyber crime.”
Boy, wouldn’t that be a tempting target for some hi-tech version of the Great Train Robbery?
This new system would also make it easier to implement tax increases; why bother with Parliament when the Chancellor of the Exchequer can just call down to the computer room at the Revenue Commissioners and have some techie nerd tap a few new figures into the system on his keyboard?
This is yet another version of the old socialist dream, to have every citizen dependent on a check from the government and afraid to speak out or criticize for fear the government will retaliate in some way by messing with your money. A nice stick to hold over a populace to keep them in line, and a stick Barack Hussein Obama and the Democrats want to wield in this country.
It’s difficult to remember that prior to World War Two, Great Britain was a free White country. Today, instead of seeing ruddy-cheeked people on the streets of London, you’ll see Muslims, Africans and Hindus. Cameras are mounted on every street corner much like Orwell’s book “1984” so that government bureaucrats can spy on you anywhere and everywhere. And now the government wants to get control of your paycheck before “graciously” condescending to let you keep a fraction of the money you earned for doing your job.
