Ceredigion’s Welsh Liberal Democrat MP Mark Williams has branded plans to force new businesses and businesses with an annual turnover of £100,000 to submit and pay their VAT online as ‘bonkers’.

The new rules will apply from April 2010, and could cause considerable difficulty to businesses without access to a reliable broadband connection or computer expertise.

Mark Williams has written to Stephen Timms, the Minister with responsibility for HMRC to ask him to reconsider the decision.

Commenting, Mark Williams said:

“This decision really is astonishingly poorly thought out and ignores the many who do not have a reliable broadband connection, or are not computer literate.

“Filling in online forms can be virtually impossible with an unreliable connection, and there will be many businesses that would simply prefer to fill in their return by hand.

“If completing returns online reduces the cost to HMRC they should do everything they can to encourage increased take-up, and indeed it might be more convenient for some businesses that haven’t considered the possibility of online returns.

“But to force businesses online when it is effectively impossible for them to do so, or to expect them to pay someone else to do it is bonkers. We should be concentrating on helping businesses, and giving them choices, not on making life easier for HMRC’s admin.”

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