Why doesn’t HMRC publish the CAP A5C online? Instead they have a dedicated web page to list the 5 forms you can only obtain by calling and waiting.
It is all about the mindset of the Bureaucrat.
My father was a MOD auditor and visited numerous RAF bases. On one occasion he ordered the scrapping of an enormous piece of obsolescent kit (aircraft fuselage) which had been unused for years. At the next visit on the rotation he was annoyed to find it still there. The explanation was that it had indeed been scrapped but the system had re-ordered it.
The forms system is designed to serve HMRC not the hapless punter. They will simply not have identified a consequent benefit to themselves nor have received a direction from further up the hierarchy.
Why is an SDLT1 not downloadable? Surely it is only HMRC and HMLR who have to spot a forgery or a missing watermark. And the bulk of filing is down by conveyancers, regulated within an inch of their lives. You are not likely to be offered a dirt cheap batch of blanks by some bloke down the pub.
Where it suits them to dragoon everyone into online submission they use tight control over printed forms to underpin their self-serving tyranny.
It is hard to see why downloading a CAP A5C constitutes a security risk and seems to run counter to the contemporary general digital obsession of the Blob.
Jack Harper