Agenda ideas?

Agenda ideas?

Didn't find your answer?

I hope to attend a local Working Together meeting in the next few months. If anyone has any issues that they would like me to try to put on the agenda, happy to oblige.

Only really looking for ideas that I might have overlooked ... if I have no personal experience of problems that you lot suggest then it would probably not be appropriate for me to handle it.
Clint Westwood

Replies (18)

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By amarshah69
03rd Jun 2008 14:00

64-8's
Hi Clint , perhaps you could ask them: Why do 64-8's go missing? We regularly told "we have no record of you as the agent" despite us having correspondence from HMRC re: that particular client in the past?
How do they just disappear from the system?

and on-line authorisations are no better - if we/client ever receive the codes to start with?

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By pauljohnston
03rd Jun 2008 11:17

Euan
I agree but was told recently that the only output from the PAYE system is a screen dump. It seems that despite the fact that PAYE collects the largest amount of tax investment in its computer system is far behind.

For PAYE why can't a statement be sent out quarterly thus alerting us to non-payments, lost payments and also that annual pigs ear. That is often the last paymnt for the year due in April is posted to the next tax year..............

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By pauljohnston
03rd Jun 2008 11:13

CT Reference
David we make the payment with out those extra digits using same ref each year and this seems to work but I agree. This is the same for paye although 0802 occassionally ends up as 0208 with the resulting reminder!!

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By User deleted
03rd Jun 2008 10:35

Corporation tax payslips
Just had this one with a client - they pay their CT by BACs, and of course store the reference. The problem is that the payslip reference changes every year - is this really necessary? They paid the 2007 tax by Bacs, but using the 2006 reference, and the Revenue simply sent it back - I day later.

Is there any reason that the last part of the payslip reference has to change?

I can't find any logical basis to work out what it should be, so if they can't change it they could either explain where it comes from or make it more transparently linked to the tax year

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Euan's picture
By Euan MacLennan
27th May 2008 11:39

PAYE account online
You can see individuals' income tax and companies' corporation tax accounts online, but you cannot see what PAYE payments have been made by an employer. Why cannot the Revenue provide this facility online? They obviously already have the technology to do it.

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By appacc
27th May 2008 10:53

Feedback
Clint, I'll reply to your point about sub contractors after my Working Together tomorrow and I'll take all the other questions in case there is an opportunity to discuss.

One thing I would be interested in is some feedback from HMRC on what they think accountants could do better. I'm always surprised how different accountants approach the same job in different ways. They could go to each dept. ie PAYE, CT, SA etc. and ask what 5 things accountants could do differently to help things along.

And ask what they do with SA attachments. Something I've never seen the need for, but I see our software now has the facility. I understand with CT but not SA.
Sorry, could ramble on forever with ideas!

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By Annetax
27th May 2008 09:18

Tax Office communication
Oxon and Bucks Corporation Tax Office at Milton Keynes - try phoning them, no seriously! Their phones have been on virtually permanent answer machine since last August, advising you to call Slough Tax Office. Sadly, Slough don't actually know anything - they will email Oxon & Bucks and if you are very lucky, they will contact you. Or maybe not.

I am told this is down to extreme ongoing staff shortages but the excuse is wearing very thin now. Most of my CT clients seem to be based there and it is impossible to check progress or even confirm if letters have arrived. Since there is also a 6-8 week processsing backlog, by the time we have established post has 'vanished' (as seems to happen frequently over there), there is a further 6-8 week delay while we send a new copy into the ether. It is incredibly frustrating!

Oh, and could the Revenue please speed up the processing of paper tax returns. Last year, I had two clients I had to file on paper and it took nearly six months before their repayments were issued, depsite ticking the right boxes, submitting early and chasing. Apparently, it was a low priority for them!

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By AnonymousUser
20th May 2008 11:30

Again, Trevor
It is my understanding that under the new CIS regime the contractor is required to provide the subcontractor with a statement of payments made under the scheme and of tax deducted at source. That statement may not be called a CIS25 any more, and the subcontractor may not be obliged to submit the certificates any more, but to all intents and purposes, as a record from which to prepare the subcontractor's statement of income, those payslips appear to serve precisely the same function as the original forms CIS25.

That being the case, I have difficulty understanding your point, here. What has changed in respect of the transition to the new regime that renders the subcontractor less capable of maintaining records than before, or more susceptable to failure? Before the new regime, getting this sort of information from HMRC was a non-starter, from my recollection. Are you saying that because there is now the possibility (which there was not before) that HMRC have up to date records of the taxpayer's income, that the taxpayer should be allowed access to that information?

I can foresee that if HMRC were to give ground on this, and it were to be come common knowledge, it would tie up a lot of HMRC resources, unless of course it were built into some automated online access. Maybe that is your point?

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By pauljohnston
21st May 2008 18:28

Christina
As I understand it if you can not file on line (MP etc) then the old filing rules apply ie 31 Jan.

If the working group want a question perhaps one down the line --- why is PAYe (the biggest tax yielder) so backward with its computerisation.

As stated earlier it is not linked to our other records so we have advices to us with our old company name and the new one, different variations on the address. Why can we not see the payments made data on-line esp as it seems that at least one clients payments each year are wrongly applied and this is only sorted out when we get a nasty note about a missing payment or after P35 submitted....

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By christina makhoul
21st May 2008 14:37

web site, priority no's
why do they have such a user unfriendly search engine on their website? I find myself googling queries just to get something meaningful, and then looking at the HMRC site once I have the location of what I needed.

has anyone noticed that it impossible to call hmrc now without using priority nos? normal phone nos are completely overwhelmed esp chapel wharf, lothians, beds & west herts.

why hasn't more fuss been made about new paper tax return deadlines, i have several clients who cant file online (vast majority do but you cant guarentee it), but clients don't have any more urgency in getting me their info than they did last year & i had 3 more months to sort it. can you ask for a marketing blitz on this 31 october deadline.

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By AnonymousUser
19th May 2008 17:47

Trevor
I should be interested in your views on whether the taxpayer is entitled to the information that you highlight, under S.7(1) Data Protection Act 1998. Of course, the Governance and Security office of HMRC would be rather swamped if every subbie in the country made an application - perhaps the threat of that route might be an appropriate chivvy for common sense to prevail.

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By User deleted
19th May 2008 16:30

Boxes 139 and 140
139 is £20 or less
140 lets you specify an amount

They are on page 4 of the short version and page 7 of the full version

Clint (and anyone else who attends Working Together meetings), could you ask them to redesign the CT600A as it is a pile of rubbish please?

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By AnonymousUser
19th May 2008 16:23

RR
I have a feeling that there is a box on the CT return where you can change the limit at which refunds are not repaid but carried forward? Or am I missing the point.

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By User deleted
19th May 2008 14:47

Tax refunds
Ltd co client has a 31 Dec y/e. His CT is due 1 Oct. He pays a few days early to make sure the cheque clears. He gets a tax refund of something like £2.37!

I am sorry if I am actually unhappy that the Revenue sends out refunds, but nobody is going to get rich from these petty amounts, and I would suggest they are probably more hassle than they are worth. How about only applying if, say, the amount is over £50, or the payment is one month earlier than it should be?

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By appacc
19th May 2008 13:33

CIS
This is a question I have raised for our own Working Together Group.


In the past, we have collected CIS25 vouchers which is generally the only income information supplied by sub contractors.
It is well known that sub contractors could deliberately fail to produce vouchers for calculation of their income and this could result in a lower tax bill.
For this reason, we have often asked HMRC for information if we felt one or more vouchers were missing.
We would also do this if a contractor failed to produce a voucher. The information could well be on your record.

It is inevitable that some contractors will struggle with producing evidence under the new system as many are not administratively minded. Certainly, compliance will not be as good as the discipline of issuing CIS25 vouchers. That may not be true in theory but I can tell you it is true in the real world.

We want to Work Together with HMRC to ensure things work smoothly. We have made two approaches to the CIS unit asking for details for sub contractors. In both cases we felt that our information was incomplete and we knew you held the correct information. In both cases you queried the figures last year and there were differences in both our records and yours. We wanted to get it right this year.

You now have a standard letter refusing to provide information on the grounds that taxpayers should keep adequate records.

Well, you must be realistic. Your information is used for compliance purposes and I am sure you check your CIS records against sub contractors declared turnover. Surely it must be better to freely disclose this information to accountants who can then help avoid compliance issues in the first place. In fact, I think our clients CIS records should be available on the website for reference. After all, the deductions are not much different to actual tax payments made on an SA account. Accountants can report differences to you and aid your compliance efforts.

Thanks

Trevor Green

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By notmy realname
17th May 2008 10:08

some ideas
Tell them one thing that is working (well for me anyhow) the new priority numbers for SA are working a treat. The staff operating the lines seem to finally have a brain.

.............can we please have the same for the other branches of HMRC?

And the long list of moans, I am still (one year after moving office) having problems getting addresses updated for PAYE. Offices swear blind that the new address is in the system, but still I have documents sent to the old one. Similarly despite killing off payslip booklets as best as i can, I still get loads of reminders for the paper slips coming through, seemingly at random. Something going horribly wrong with the automatic software updates between systems I think.

Again on addresses it seems very random to me when new addresses get picked up on SA returns. I know there is the box to tick for a new address, but this doesn't always seem to work, and if you forget to tick it then there doesn't seem any system for checking the old address to the one on the form, ie a failsafe would be sensible.

Letters out - why cant they send out letters within 24 hours like anyone else? Delays between sending them by HMRC staff and actually been put in the post are a joke, especially to the ID codes for the on-line agent authorisation are a real pain and does cause re-issues.

Lack of SA statements to clients this year caused a lot of unnecessary problems. Again why is this presumably highly automated task not completed in good time? Lateness is compounded by the 7 day delay in posting thing out.

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By skylarking
16th May 2008 18:27

Spurious PAYE coding notices
Some are wrong, some are 'trying it on' some are outrageous, based on wildly exaggerated (£10k) savings income that doesn't exist.
There are offices who appear to be trigger happy treating P11d disclosed always as taxable expenses, without any cross-referencing with the SATR and in other cases a section claim as 'wholly necessarily' is ignored.
Sorry this is hurried, I really want to get home now.

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By AnonymousUser
16th May 2008 16:55

I've got a gripe!
Clint
When the Revenue send correspondece to a client company (say) a corporation tax calculation/demand or a notice to file a CT return the Revenue send a copy to the Registered Office and a copy to us as the Agent.

That works fine unless, as happens in many cases, the RO of the company is at our office. We end up with two copies of the document and have to forward one on.

When I raised this with the IR before, some years ago, I was told that a copy has to go to the RO and their systems couldn't find a workaround for the second copy to go anywhere except the Agent's address.

Now that many more clients have incorporated the issue is becoming increasingly time consuming

Would you see whether anyone at the IR can think up a solution?
Thanks
Martin

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