A chance to petition the government to reconsider their proposal to dip into our bank accounts and take tax directly

I recently signed the following e-petition: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/68384

The epetiton was created by Mike Truman, the editor of “Taxation” magazine which we, sad people, in the tax profession get and (usually) read every week.

It asks the Government to withdraw their existing proposals to be able to dip directly into taxpayers bank accounts and take tax they believe is unpaid.
 
HMRC’s current proposals allow them to be judge, jury and executioner with the taxpayer having only limited (and very expensive) ability to challenge HMRC.
 
Some in the tax profession and beyond think that HMRC’s proposed powers are simply “a power too far”. Others think the lack of independent oversight prior to HMRC being able to exercise this new power needs to be addressed. In either case, we believe the proposals need to be withdrawn now and not introduced again until after the next General Election. Otherwise, if the proposals are contained in the next Budget in March 2015, there will almost certainly be insufficient time given to debate the clauses and the powers could be enacted without real scrutiny.
 
Many of us will be aware just from our own experience of dealing with HMRC over the years that they do not always get things right. I can recount numerous examples of client cases where HMRC has demanded tax which was not due (you may also wish to see another news posting about HMRC wrongly going after Class 2 NICs on those who simply own buy to let properties). For this reason alone, in my view, the new proposals need to be resisted.
 
I thought I would give all my clients and contacts the opportunity to see the epetition so that you too can click through it and sign it if you want. After all, it is all our bank accounts that could be at risk!