PRIVATIZING UK TAX LAW ENFORCEMENT?
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1986.tb00625.x |
| Date | 01 September 1986 |
| Published date | 01 September 1986 |
| Author | CHRISTOPHER HOOD |
PRIVATIZING
UK
TAX
LAW ENFORCEMENT?
CHRISTOPHER HOOD
Tax law enforcement in the
UK
has long been dominated by public bureaucracies
of
the
'classic' type. This article reviews some current problems
of
tax law enforcement in that
style, and looks at some possible ways
of
mitigating those problems.
These
include a change
in penalty schedules and some measure
of
're-privatization'
of
tax law enforcement, harking
back
to
pre-bureaucratic enforcement styles. Six problems likely to be associated with
privatization
of
tax law enforcement are discussed. These are not trivial, but it
is
argued
that they may be somewhat less severe in the case
of
tax law enforcement than in that
of
law enforcement in general.
Since the abandonment of tax-farming in the English Customs in 1671 and in the
Excise in 1683, the main responsibility for indirect tax law enforcement
in
the
UK
has been in the hands
of
public bureaucracies
of
the 'classic' type. That means
publicly-owned hierarchical enterprises, financed through allocations from an
annual block budget, staffed by full-time career officials rewarded by fixed salaries
(and pensions), under
direct
political oversight, at least in matters
of
general policy,
and with an effective monopoly in the field. (Indeed, it could be said that the 18th-
century English excise organization was one
of
the main prototypes for the modem
style of public bureaucracy in the
UK.)
Full-time bureaucratic domination
of
law enforcement came much later for direct
taxes, with a strengthening of the legal authority of salaried central bureaucrats
over the original scale fee-financed system of local franchisees in 1880, the replace-
ment of scale fee rewards by fixed salaries in 1892, and the establishment of local
tax officials as pensioned civil servants subject to hierarchical control from the
centre in 1931 (Cmnd. 615,1920, pp. 1125-41). Indeed, some vestiges of the
original
parish assessment system lingered on after that, until they were finally swept away
by the 1964 Taxes Management Act. (That system originally worked
along
the
lines of
jury
duty, with no legal right for
those
nominated as assessors and collectors
to refuse office, and collective liability by parishes for losses caused by dishonesty,
often allied to a fidelity bonding system).
In an age of privatization, the pre-bureaucratic system of tax collection may
be worth re-examining as an institutional option for the performance of this public
Christopher Hood is
in
the Department
of
Government and Public Administration, University
of
Sydney, Australia.
Public Administration
Vol.
64
Autumn
1986 (319-333)
0
1986
Royal
Institute
of
Public Administration
ISSN
0033-3298 $3.00
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