04 October 2013

The uncivil servant

Vulgarity is everywhere.  The Guardian reports:
Hundreds of thousands of families losing child benefit payments this year need to "get off their backsides" and fill in extra forms to avoid being fined by the taxman, the head of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has said.
Lin Homer, chief executive of HMRC, said more than 200,000 families still needed to register for the self-assessment tax forms as part of the government's plans to take away child benefit for higher earners.
...Homer told BBC Radio Five on Friday that many families due to lose their benefit were simply being "inactive".
"We think there are still 200,000 people who still need to get off their backsides," she said. "If anyone's in doubt about whether they are in this category, if they go to our website, they'll find a calculator, they can put in details and it will give them a very clear indication of whether they are caught or not.
Ms Homer's hitherto stellar career appears to have overcome all obstacles, despite her successive failures as a returning officer, as the chief executive of the Border Agency and as the head of the Department of Transport.  She might nevertheless wish to bear in mind that many of those she is now urging to get off their backsides might be Tory voters.

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