Draft Northern Ireland Equality Scheme for HMRC

LITRG were pleased to respond from the perspective of disabled taxpayers, and commented on the following areas:

• HMRC’s arrangements for consulting (Chapter 3)
• HMRC’s arrangements for assessing, monitoring and publishing the impact of policies (Chapter 4)
• HMRC’s plans for training and raising awareness to promote the scheme (Chapter 5)
• HMRC’s arrangements to ensure our information and services are accessible to everyone (Chapter 6)

Overall, we told HMRC that their commitment to the s75 duties is well demonstrated throughout the draft document, and in particular we are pleased to note that HMRC are prepared ‘to commit the appropriate resources in terms of people, time and money where reasonable and proportionate, to make sure that the equality scheme is implemented effectively’.

However, from what we see in our work, it seems that in some cases certain tax rules and HMRC practices continue to make things more difficult for people with disabilities and we think there is scope for HMRC to improve their standards. As such, we suggested that HMRC should incorporate further commitments in the equality scheme which would make for stronger or more extensive provisions for HMRC’s disabled customers.

You can read HMRC’s draft equality scheme on GOV.UK.

You can read our response here: Draft Northern Ireland Equality Scheme for HMRC – LITRG response

Meredith McCammond