Monday 16 March 2009

There's Irony For You

Irony
It is reported that TNT have been awarded a £4.5M mail contract by HMRC, the largest one awarded in government for mail and parcels in fact.

Aside from the fact that this is taking work away from the Royal Mail, which in theory is to remain state controlled, the real irony is that TNT was subject to an HMRC investigation that caused it to pay back millions of pounds (estimated by some at around £48M) of unpaid tax after its staff illegally falsified and backdated documents.

Oh, I should also mention that TNT were blamed by HMRC for losing those discs in 2007.

Tax does have to be taxing.

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4 comments:

  1. How typical.

    Along with Mapeley, we now have to put up with these fatcats here at HMRC, which in turn deliver a truly piss-poor service.

    What is it with HMRC doing business with shady organisations?

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  2. Of course they are used to shady organisations, they work with HM Treasury.

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  3. With HMRC being a part of government and the government owning, in effect, The Royal Mail, HMRC awarding this contract to TNT, is just like Lord Sainsbury doing his shopping at Asda....It makes no sense.

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  4. So glad to see someone pinning a proportion of the blame on TNT.

    I recently posted on a forum, "Obviously, the decision to send those two ill-fated discs in November 2007 was due to a combination of institutional failure, a lack of accountability, and a worryingly low level of concern about data security. However, let's not forget that the actual disc loss was courtesy of TNT."

    After the data-loss, some of the horror stories coming from HMRC's association with TNT were truly mind-boggling. Delivering HMRC mail to a pub? Check. Delivering HMRC mail to a clothes shop? Check. Delivering a large box of documentation to a member of the public and then becoming quite shirty when she initially refused to accept a large box labelled 'HMRC'? Check.

    TNT: they may fuck up on a daily basis, but at least they're cheap.

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