In the past, we've had a box of agents' copies of statements of account delivered from the Revenue every December. ( I know you can see the position online, assuming the system isn't down or hasn't "lost" your client, but it's a lot less time consuming if you've got a paper copy.)
So far, no box of statements this year. Does anyone know what's happening?
Marcella Shone
Replies (7)
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Answer to which office to send payment
To find out whether Cumbernauld or Shipley deal with a client, log on to the Self assessment service and select the client. Choose View Statements then select How to Pay from the sub-menu under View Statements. This takes you to a page which shows which office to contact.
Don't select How to Pay function without going through View Statements as this will just give general advice.
It may be that you can get the detail from selecting a statement to view, however on my system this at present just results in a blank page where the statement is in PDF format.
See HMRC "What's new"
The downloadable payslip on the site dated 9 Jan says to send payment to Bradford BD98 1YY if you do not have pre addressed envelope, which I assume means if you do not know which one.
This is helpful since the return reminder, with payslip attached, which a client received on 9 Jan is dated 17 Dec.
Hopefully now that HMRC are changing bankers to RBS payment and banking will improve. The first being that the faster banking service should be available!
Temporary not permanent
It's not that the Revenue are doing this because everyone uses the online versions. It's just a temporary measure because of some unspecified data/security issues. Paper statements are supposed to be back in Dec 2009.
Which of course begs the question of what security issues were involved that weren't criminally negligent previously. And if it is really a smokescreen to dump physical agents statements, why bother? Just say so.
None of it would matter much if the system was flawless and reliable. We'd tolerate the increased time taken to do certain tasks online over the physical item. But when the thing's in maintenance/flakey/just unavailable it's a shoddy move by the Revenue.
Agents copies have been withdrawn
The HMRC website states that SA327 statements of account have been withdrawn. This was published on 9 January.
Presumably they assume that all agents are able to access their clients details online.
The HMRC have provided a downloadable paylsip for agents use.
Go to http://rss.openobjects.com/rss/hmrc-agents.rss and you should then be able to access it.
Good news!
It is still growing in a forest somewhere!
ps if you look at the other threads on this you will see that they are not being sent out.