Personal Tax Account

How to access it

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I spent over an hour on Friday 17 March 2017 in trying to access my own Personal Tax Account on the TaxMan's website.  It asked me if I had a "Government Gateway Account".  Yes, as a Practitioner registered for filing clients' self-assessment tax returns, I do.  Well, it didn't work.  The taxman's website had no telephone number, but a feature of a pop-up "chat".  Ugh.   I tried it, and as I was multi-tasking, I did not notice when - eventually - someone typed out a question that was irrelevant as I had given FULL information as to what I wanted.  Eventually,  I registered twice for an identity before manging to go back to the Personal Tax Account on HMRC.gov.uk.   A 7 minute telephone call would certainly have given me the solution and enabled me to get on it earlier.  Hs anyone else experienced this trauma?

Replies (14)

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By SteveHa
20th Mar 2017 16:14

You need a separate, personal GG login, not your agent one. TBH, I'd have thought this obvious.

Having said, I didn;t have to register specifically for the PTA (which remains wrong, incidentally). My registration for SA worked (though it still made me go through the whole verify crud, outsourced by HMRC, which I'm pretty sure is a breach of confidentiality).

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Replying to SteveHa:
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By MartinLevin
21st Mar 2017 09:38

While I appreciate your response, PLEASE would respondents AVOID initial letters in replies. We learned WORDS to communicate. It's NOT quicker to type initial letters, which can be different things to each reader. Thus, shortcuts take longer. But do, please, keep writing.

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Replying to MartinLevin:
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By User deleted
21st Mar 2017 11:06

Without wishing to be disrespectful, if one is to be critical, you're not exactly a wordsmith yourself, are you?

One must be careful not to criticise the splinter in anothers eye, when a plank exists, within ones own.

From experience, acronyms are a stable feature in the education movement and their extensive use, is not for the fainthearted.

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Replying to MartinLevin:
By SteveHa
21st Mar 2017 11:27

When chastising me for doing what is commonplace these days, please do not capitalise whole words. When written in a forum it comes across as shouting and is considered rude.

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Replying to SteveHa:
RLI
By lionofludesch
22nd Mar 2017 10:36

I prefer to use bold or italics - or even underlining - for emphasis.

We used to be able to do that and then the forum was improved ....

We're just left with CAPITAL letters now as an option.

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Replying to SteveHa:
RLI
By lionofludesch
21st Mar 2017 09:59

SteLacca wrote:

You need a separate, personal GG login, not your agent one. TBH, I'd have thought this obvious.

It's not obvious, is it ? Why would they ask if you have a GG account if you can't use it for more than one thing ?

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By Marion Hayes
20th Mar 2017 16:37

I have had a personal login longer than an agent login.
I tried to access it a year ago and it tried to make me verify which I refuse as I agree giving personal info to unknown parties is definitely a breach of allsorts of things.
Then I tried again a few months ago only to be asked to 2 step verify(using my mobile) but then asked me a question based on info held - only it wasn't. Last week I finally managed to access by allowing them to ask me questions based on my credit file.
Not happy about that but better than other options.
Finally in and now on another rant about contribution records they show.
Ah well...................

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By mrme89
21st Mar 2017 09:50

SA – Self Assessment
PTA – Personal Tax Account
GG – Government Gateway

Given that each of those are mentioned in your OP (haha!), I presume Ste thought that you would have had the intelligence to quickly realise what each of them meant.

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Replying to mrme89:
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By MartinLevin
22nd Mar 2017 10:01

Maybe some people that post these comments are unaware of Louis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland where a character said "words mean what I mean them to mean". The same cannot be said for initial letters.
(2) Using upper case is designed to make emphasis, not shouting. That's your (incorrect) interpretation of MY writings.
(3) As the Good-English Professor, I deplore how our language is misused. The latest example is that an exclamation mark (!) is intended to be used for pointing out a joke. Please tell Donald Trump who ends each of his tweets with one.....

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Replying to MartinLevin:
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By MM Bookkeeping Services
22nd Mar 2017 10:25

Not wishing to come across as pedantic but I think the person who wrote Alice in Wonderland was LEWIS Carroll not Louis Carroll!
Oh sorry for capitalising and the exclamation mark.

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Replying to MartinLevin:
By mrme89
22nd Mar 2017 10:49

MartinLevin wrote:

That's your (incorrect) interpretation of MY writings.
>

No it isn't.

Someone else said that, not me.

I think we should just accept that reading, writing, and common sense just isn't your thing and move on.

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Replying to mrme89:
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By Paul Hawes
22nd Mar 2017 13:49

You managed to work out what "MY" stands for? These abbreviation things are hard.

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Replying to Paul Hawes:
RLI
By lionofludesch
22nd Mar 2017 13:56

Mid Year ?

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By pauld
30th Mar 2017 09:04

F U N E X?
S V F X
F U N E M?
S V F M
I V F M N X
N Q

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