This week's opinion: 25 June 2020

Last week I rode in a taxi for the first time in months. The driver was in a chatty mood and he was willing to talk about how his business had been affected by lockdown. Things had been tough but, without any prompting from me, he added how much he had appreciated the support of HMRC. He mentioned in particular how straightforward the process of applying under the self-employed scheme had been. Now I don’t know about you, but praise for HMRC is not something I would have expected to come from a taxi-driver. 

This made me think about whether the Covid-19 experience could result in a recalibration of the relationship between the self-employed and HMRC. Of course, it is easier to have a positive view of the tax authority when it is handing out money rather than collecting it, but there was something about my driver’s experience that went beyond the purely financial aspect. What struck me was his appreciation that the system had been designed to make things as easy as possible for a taxpayer like him to use. That principle was a major building block of making tax digital. There would be a massive benefit to all if the positive experience could be embedded into a revised approach to the taxation of self-employed people. We need a complete rethink of the end-to-end process from the policy design to the implementation.

Six months ago, even I, an optimist in these matters, would have said that this was just a pipe dream and could never be done. But HMRC’s response to the pandemic has shown that the unthinkable can be achieved. Let’s collectively build on that experience.