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A question was recently asked in Parliament (Hansard, 22 Jun 2009, vol 494, no 96, col 670W) about the Revenue's plans to enable MPs to submit their tax returns online.
Financial secretary to the Treasury Stephen Timms replied that members of Parliament have to complete special, dedicated pages.
‘These forms are not available online since it would be disproportionately costly to develop the links to departmental computer systems,' said Mr Timms.
Previous arguments against MPs filing online have, however, related to a lack of security, not cost.
Nigel Powell, a spokesperson from Digita, part of Thomson Reuters, noted that ‘the original HMRC line was that certain people, including judges, senior officers in HM armed forces and secret services and MPs, could not submit their forms online because once their returns had been filed - i.e. inside the Government Gateway - they could be read by anyone inside HMRC.
'In other words, there was not enough secrecy.'
Mr Powell added that while it is true that MPs have a special return page, ‘it is not really that complex’ and not that much different from the usual employment page, so should not cause any difficulties in terms of online submission.
As to the secrecy issue, Mr Powell suggested that ‘since MPs’ expenses went public and their salaries also seem to be public knowledge, it effectively blows away the whole idea of HMRC having to maintain the Official Secrets Act’.
