Letter: Not so taxing

Reading the letter (27 August) by professors Andrew Hughes Happett and Drew Scott on powers beyond Calman and their quote " to absorb the added cost of lodging a supplementary PAYE return for those of its employees residing in Scotland, as well as pay higher taxes to cover the costs of collecting those taxes", I feel they have not considered just how automated the PAYE system has become.

For the last three years, I have been using the HM Revenues and Customs payroll system to pay employees based in three of the four British countries. It is virtually automatic.

It is an online system and at regular intervals HMRC issue CDs containing the software and data files to calculate PAYE, National Insurance and Employer's National Insurance. The software also prepares the end-of-year files automatically. Each month, all that a company does is make a payment of the total amount of tax and NI by the BACs system.

There is no submission of forms on a regular basis apart from new starts or departures. At the same time, HMRC issues changes in tax code.

At the end of the year, a single set of figures detailing tax and NI is sent automatically. Since the postcode of each employee is held on file, it is a simple matter to separate Scottish employees from the others automatically.

Whatever the political questions, the technical aspect of using postcodes for tax or local income tax as a replacement for council tax means there would not be a significant increase in bureaucracy if there is an individual system for Scotland.

BRUCE D SKIVINGTON

Strath

Gairloch, Wester Ross