£75m IT costs for Revenue and Customs
The cost of integrating the Inland Revenue with Customs will reach at least £75m and could rise higher, the Treasury has revealed today.
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According to the Treasury’s ‘regulatory impact assessment’, the Revenue and Customs will incur £75m costs mainly due to integrating the two IT systems between 2004 and 2006.
But the figure could climb higher due to unforseen costs arising out of IT overlaps between the two departments.
‘The known costs that arise directly from the creation of Revenue and Customs are anticipated to be to the order of £75m over 2004/05 and 2005/06, including the preparatory costs of alignment of basic services, such as work to put the future IT desktop requirements of the departments on a common platform,’ The Treasury said.
‘Further costs from integration may arise in due course, for example, from changes to join up some of the services the two departments currently provide to business customers independently. These cannot be quantified until the associated policies have been agreed.’