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Who is the FPB?
"FPB chief executive Phil Orford said it was the wrong time to schedule the work" How so?
"Online services such as VAT will be available up until midnight on 7 April" which is the deadline for filing February VAT returns online, so no problem there.
Apart from that, 5th to 10th/11th of a month for a shutdown could hardly be better chosen, particularly as most of it falls over the Easter bank holiday weekend. CIS returns for the month to 5th April can be filed at any time up to 19th April. The deadline for filing End of Year PAYE returns is not until 19th May. How many payrolls are going to be run this early in the month and during a bank holiday weekend? So, no problem with In Year PAYE filing. No-one has yet received a notice to file their 2011/12 self-assessment returns and even if they had, how many would feel any desperate urge to file it within the first week of the 10 months allowed? Corporation Tax returns are not due until the end of a month.
The HMRC gets enough criticism for its failings, but its choice of the Easter weekend for its inevitable annual shutdown to upgrade its systems is not one of them and the FPB (whoever they may be) should give credit where it is due.
Self Assement down 5th-11th April!
"FPB chief executive Phil Orford said it was the wrong time to schedule the work" How so?
As a sole trader currently buying a property who needs to submit this years SA302 for mortgage purposes, the day after the end of the finacial year is definitely the wrong time. I see that i'm not the only person who for one reason or another needs to file their tax returns on the first day of the new financial year. And the Self assement online service doesnt start up again until the 11th April.
One small picky point, Euan
Because you know how much I love to correct you :)
Not all CT returns are due at the end of a month. I have quite a few clients that, for reasons best known to themselves, have accounting reference dates right in the middle of a month, and others at various dates in the month.
Fortunately the only two with period ends falling within this shutdown period are safely away.
Difficult for small businesses
I have a number of small businesses that execute weekly pay so therefore require to send the year end asap in order to process the payroll next week. Before you rush to say there is plenty of time, not if the information has to be with the bank three days before payment due Friday.
Today, Thursday, has been a joke as the HMRC site just is not processing the year end payrolls, I have been to three clients today to get their year end sorted and has all had to be abandoned. So much for open until 9pm!! Probably companies have all been rushing to get theirs sent before Easter and it has crashed the site, bodes well for the weekly RTI in 2013 doesn't it!
PAYE service issues
Just checked the HMRC website for service issues and discovered they actually moved the goalposts as it appears anything sent after 6pm Tuesday will not get acknowledged until 13th April so hence it coming up 'awaiting processing'. So will not know if anything has been received until well past the point of being able to process the first weekly pay of the year for week in hand clients.
Euan is spot on as always. And if there there have been problems arising, it might be annoying, but I'm sure the any penalty will be reversed.
weekly payroll
Elaynam - depending on your software you should be able to process into the new tax year without having to submit your year-end data first.
Is there an editorial?
I read AWEB because I anticipate that those contributing articles, whether they are based on press releases/rent-a-quotes from business lobbyists or not, will provide us with some added value instead of just regurgiting the views of the uninformed.
This article would be more valuable if it stated the FPB view and then made an attempt to analyse it with some editiroial comment. Does AWEB think the FPB is correct? Does it think it is HMRC bashing? The absence of any attempt to comment on the FPB's quotes seems to endorse it but, as the comments have shown, this is really a little unfair. Yes, we can all comment here but it is a shame if AWEB goes down the route of just republishing press releases with sensationalist headlines. We have the Daily Mail for that.
More notice next time please
I understand the choice of the Easter weekend but to overrun into next week and at short notice is disappointing. I appreciate the updates have to be done at some point and it's never convenient but I write as a book-keeper visiting clients sometimes only once a month, in these cases the CIS returns have to be submitted on the day I'm at the client if I'm using the client's own software - my dates for visiting clients are booked weeks or months ahead.
Similar to Elaynam I'm booked on Tuesday for my annual visit to a client to process their year-end and upgrade their data for the new year, as they run 2 payrolls on 1 software licence (dont't ask) I make the year end returns via the HMRC website to split the payrolls apart. With my regular book-keeping visits and a few other extras April's diary is already full so I will now do the payroll upgrade, print the reports, complete the year end on the software and have to enter the data on the HMRC website another day.
Yes, I can work around this but a little more notice would have helped so I could have planned ahead.
On-line Agent Authorisation
I have just begun acting for a client and need to file a VAT return by the end of today. The previous agent filed using their agent codes and obviously I can't use those. Last Wednesday I requested the authorisation code to be sent to my client that would enable me to file their VAT return online. The client received the code in this morning's post. I have tried to enter the code and lo and behold it is not possible because of the maintenance work. So how am I supposed to file the return now?? The client has paid the VAT but it will still be classed as late because the return has not been filed. Any ideas what can be done? I guess I will have good grounds for an appeal against any penalties.
How can they justify any shutdown at all?
Regardless of timing etc., why do they need a complete shutdown in the first place? Can you imagine Amazon or Google or Ebay or their likes just shutting down their systems for updates? It doesn't happen. They do live updates and any shutdowns are minimal. If they need a complete shutdown, then that just says that their programmers (past and present) are useless as the systems were clearly not programmed to be updated as and when needed doing small bits at a time. It's not as if the systems are connected - i.e. the VAT system has no links to SA, CT has no links to PAYE, so the separate systems could easily be upgraded separately. Having huge updates that take days once every year are bound to increase the risk of fundamental foul ups which seem to happen time and time again.
Justification
Regardless of timing etc., why do they need a complete shutdown in the first place?
Are you a programmer or an IT technician? Do you have any experience of complicated IT systems and the issues with updating them? I'm interested that you feel qualified to slam something that I suspect you know nothing about. Now, I don't feel qualified to call somebody or something useless without actually understanding the issues.
I'm not trying to be rude, but I think it's clear that you have no experience in IT, or server maintenance and administration.
Amazon v HMRC
Well, Wild Billy, I'm with Ken Howard. Of course Amazon would not be off for a week; nor would any sensible commercial enterprise. The difference is that it makes no difference to HMRC if they inconvenience those who are forced to use their service. You don't have to be an experienced IT technician to know when you are getting a bad IT service. As you are not trying to be rude I am guessing it just comes naturally. Incidentally if anyone is using wages software that requires you to complete one year before starting another, then for goodness sake, move to Moneysoft Payroll Manager.
For Wild Billy
Yes I have extensive experience, gained over 30 years, of helping design and install large IT installations & databases. I've worked with countless programmers and systems analysts. One of the fundamental issues that I've always highlighted as of the utmost importance on every system I've worked with is the ability to make minor changes without necessitating wholesale shutdowns or re-writes. Proper software writing/planning requires programming loads of subroutines that can be amended independently of others. Another fundamental was real time data storage and backup for robust data protection and to avoid loss of data etc.
Very early on in my accountancy career, I spent a lot of time working on a particular client who had been badly let down by their outsourced computer programmers for their bespoke in house systems encompassing accounts, sales, production, procurement, etc - it was an absolute dogs breakfast. Every little change we needed seemed to require extensive reprogramming. That experience led me to ensure everything else I became involved with was properly spec'd in the first place and properly programmed.
So, yes, I do know quite a lot about what goes on in the spec, design, and programming functions of large IT systems. There is absolutely no need for shutdowns lasting days. Not even a need for lasting hours, regardless of how large the system. If it takes so long, then clearly they havn't any faith in their systems as they are preparing for failures and having to reinstall backup data.
So much doesn't need to be done now. Their VAT system has no fundamental change needs on 6 April so could have been left alone. Corporation tax is likewise - last year they didn't change the rates until the Autumn update, so what do they change in April? At the end of the day, they're clearly scared stiff of foul ups so take the safe option of allowing themselves plenty of time for full system restores and reprogramming. The heads of IT in commercial organisations wouldn't be allowed to shut down for days and if they were doubtful about their work, they'd be sacked. Quite simply, if any major commercial IT system was down for more than a few hours, heads would roll.
Easter weekend is irrelevant
The fact that it was Easter weekend is irrelevant. They do this every year around 5 April. This year, it happens to be Easter weekend which possibly makes it less inconvenient as they have two extra bank holidays to fit work into, but still a nuisance.
Only another 24hrs before we know whether the EOY went through
I agree with Jon Darlington move to Moneysoft Payroll Manager, I have done so already so will have no problems myself next year. However my clients are a different matter, most have already had to pay the maintenance fee for their respective payroll program in order to get to year end. What is not going down at all well though is possibly having to pay for my services twice in order to complete their year end. I appreciate Alicooke's remark and I am well aware what one can do but whilst one can advise cients to change their payroll it is not obligatory.
Insult added to injury
I have read the comments regarding the close down of HMRC online services. I feel that if they are to continue pushing agents and taxpayers to use more online services, this type of lengthy shut down is unacceptable, but what really hurts is that today I received, by post, 2 notices to file self assessment returns. The notices make a great fuss about penalties for non compliance.
Still no joy on PAYE
Self-assessments OK, still no joy on PAYE which are all hanging for now. I will leave off doing them until at least one clears, experience suggests HMRC can make huge muck-ups with any submission which ends up in the "difficult" pile.
I would like to add my complete support to the condemnation of this ridiculous twice per year shutdown fiasco. Only HMRC are arrogant enough to do this, yet by the same token they are also arrogant enough to expect everyone to file online via their useless systems.
Not even the banks do these lengthy offline shutdowns anymore or it is P45 time!
Service access
Have logged into PAYE without any problems this morning. Although I have two clients (one where I'm agent and one where I use the clients ID) where the Director's have had letters with new tax codes for the 2012/13 year but there is no online notification for the new tax code showing, both are set to (and normally do) receive notifications online.
I've also submitted from Moneysoft a CIS return and had that acknowledged. Bizarrely though the acknowledgement email was sent to the client not to me hence logging into the website, nowhere within their HMRC account can I find the client's email address checking under your account and notifications email both locations show my email address.
Beggars Belief to shut PAYE down for THIS WEEK
There is no excuse for this on HMRC's part.
Imagine Amazon shutting down their website for a week at the beginning of December. Or worse yet (and much closer to what HMRC are doing) allowing people to try to place orders, but not telling them whether those orders are successful or not for a week.
Yes, decent payroll software (12Pay included of course) handles this fine. Payroll operations are completely divorced from year-end filing so users can get on with paying their staff in the new year. But that doesn't stop us from getting a deluge of support calls from clients who don't believe or accept that the reason why their internet P35/P14 submissions aren't completing is because HMRC accepts the submission but doesn't process it for a full week at their very busiest time of year.
Basic Paye Tools 2012
(HMRC's own software program) does not allow a work around as suggested above. For those who have been drawn into using HMRC's software and online processing 2011-2012 must be closed off and P35 at least prepared (if not submitted) before any 2012-2013 payroll routines can begin.
Several bloggers (see comments above) seem to be out of touch with the real world..... For example:- "Easter Holiday" - what Easter Holiday? Lots of businesses remain open during the first 14 days of April and the payroll for weekly paid workers is now almost a whole fortnight behind.
What's going to happen in future with the introduction of Real Time Information?
Best wishes to all,
P2
In April 2013 HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is introducing a new way of reporting PAYE: Real Time Information, or RTI.
Using RTI, employers and pension providers will tell HMRC about PAYE payments at the time they are made as part of their payroll process. Payroll software will collect the necessary information and send it to HMRC Online.
So you will submit information about PAYE payments throughout the year as part of your payroll process, rather than at the end of the year as you do now.
RTI only affects the submission of PAYE information – payment arrangements will remain unchanged.
Most employers will be legally required to use RTI from April 2013 with all employers submitting RTI by October 2013. HMRC will tell you when your business needs to make this move
RTI is a joke
As I have posted on here before, the prospect of RTI being anything other than another HMRC shambles is under 5%.
Let's face it, this current week is easy peasy compared to RTI. If the system is on a complete go slow now for a week, we'll face this every single month going forward.
Also, having worked for very large companies with over 1,000 on the payroll and now sorting out the payroll for small businesses with a max. 25 staff, mostly they have one thing in common in-year:
Problems to be resolved before the end of the tax year.
Mostly little problems. Sometimes big ones, like when you do a major systems implementation and things are going to the wrong place because it was rushed through at 100mph - does this sound familiar HMRC?
I just hope they listen properly to the feedback from the pilots and don't railroad it through to get Brownie points from Boy george and Co.
Annoying
I use Moneysoft and have done for years and can confirm it is a wonderful piece of software.
The only real thing I have found annoying is not receiving the emails saying successfully received.... I have now received approximately 16 in one go and I am now having to file each one as appropriate... I suppose,apart from that, it was a sensible time to update... Although more notice should have been provided.
RTI
I still don't understand how they can introduce RTI part way through the tax year. Will we have to file P35s to 30/9/13? How will the first 6 months be dealt with???
RTI payroll alignment
I still don't understand how they can introduce RTI part way through the tax year. Will we have to file P35s to 30/9/13? How will the first 6 months be dealt with???
There's a "payroll alignment" process where employers send special returns, which are more or less equivalent to P35 and P14s, but in a completely different format. For the rest of the tax year, they send the normal RTI returns and they don't send P35 or P14s at the end of the year.
Well... that's the plan, anyway :-)
shut down
Come on folks lets not get too het up about this.
We all know how the Revenue / Government( or anyone for that matter who is not personally footing the bill for something and using other peoples money ) get things wrong with their IT projects so why be surprised that they have to shut down for so long.
Look on it as a holiday and as it fell over Easter what the h**l.
Anyone who is using a payroll that has to be closed down before the next year can be used should not moan, they should have used a proper system, been using Moneysoft for years, does what it says on the tin and does not cost the earth, have 40 payrolls running, weekly, 4 weekly and monthly, and will be able to file them in a day when I get round to them so no panic there.
As regards VAT then if your clients left it to the last minute to get the information to you then get them educated that it comes in mid month or they pay the penalties if you cannot meet the deadline
Seems to me that you only want to moan about things, get a life and chill out. Only gripe I have is the grotty green or is my screen was on the blink.
Use a proper system
Ralan says:-
Anyone who is using a payroll that has to be closed down before the next year can be used should not moan, they should have used a proper system,
So the HMRC's own offering - Basic Paye Tools - is not a "proper system" in your view, Ralan?
Best wishes
P2
HMRC online payroll
I have just had a client come to me who uses the HMRC software and he had not backed up his data ( I have never tried to use it so do not know how it works) and it was not backed up on the HMRC site he tells me. His computer crashed and he lost everything and he could not access the 51 weeks on the HMRC site so he has had to go back and re input 51 weeks payroll from his printouts to be able to pay week 52 and do his year end.
I have not actually seen or tried to recover data on the HMRC site like this and am only relying on what the client has told me but if he could have found it he would instead of haveing to re input it all again.
Is that what you call a proper system?
He now knows he should have kept proper backups and not to rely on the Revenue keeping the data, we know what they do with memory sticks do't we!!!!!!!!!!
Thursday March 12 update
Some year-end returns are finally going through today. Only trouble is, before I started work this morning I had to read and agree to 15 pages of HMRC terms and conditions (equivalent to a chapter of Dickens) which have been newly introduced as a prequel to online filing from today onwards.
Tired, P2
Terms & Conditions
P2 - please could you let us have a synopsis of the new T&C's as I haven't yet read them and can't imagine my clients doing so.
Forum slams HMRC over Easter shut down
Much more helpful if we accepted this (and other) small inconveniences, and instead got the bottom line on things like
a) why do some (all, perhaps?) of the information Boxes in the SA template only tolerate a limited number of character-types
b) why does the online CT template not accept an overall copy/paste procedure from Excel or Word
c) why, when commercial software can achieve it, can't HMRC arrange for their programmer people to have non-residence, partnership etc. Supplementaries available for on-line data population (so that the whole exercise can be done come 31st January, instead of everything on paper by the previous 31st October)
@ thepayrollsite
"There's a "payroll alignment" process where employers send special returns, which are more or less equivalent to P35 and P14s, but in a completely different format. For the rest of the tax year, they send the normal RTI returns and they don't send P35 or P14s at the end of the year."
God help us! This is supposed to save time and be an improvement is it? So next year, unless we go on to RTI in April, there will still be P35s for the year AND RTI. I can't wait.
@taxhound
God help us! This is supposed to save time and be an improvement is it? So next year, unless we go on to RTI in April, there will still be P35s for the year AND RTI. I can't wait.
No, not P35s - something worse.
... and the last RTI submission of the year is a bit different to the others, so there will be a year end process. It just won't be a P35.
HMRC says this will make it easier for us all, and will save employers £300 million. Magic!
Hear Hear
God help us! This is supposed to save time and be an improvement is it? So next year, unless we go on to RTI in April, there will still be P35s for the year AND RTI. I can't wait.
No, not P35s - something worse.
... and the last RTI submission of the year is a bit different to the others, so there will be a year end process. It just won't be a P35.
HMRC says this will make it easier for us all, and will save employers £300 million. Magic!
It seems that everyone finds P35/P14 so horrifically difficult that to save us that appalling burden HMRC is ready to make us do something similar 12 or 52 times a year, instead of once a year. Their research apparently indicated that employers were "crying out" for this change.
In reality the only thing making P35 a difficulty that required more than 30 seconds of any site's time this year was HMRC shutting down responses for a whole week in the filing season. I look forward to how well RTI will cope with such shutdowns.
The business case for RTI...
CIS300 forms (12 a year) replaced CIS35 (1 a year) some years ago.
A real money spinner for HMRC in terms of raising revenue from penalties (fines).
What I'm now waiting to see announced is what the failure to submit RTI penalties (fines) will be...
..really could be a super moneyspinner for HMRC - potentially 52 penalties (fines) a year per employer instead of one!
This surely passes the business case test for HMRC - ignore the needs of their "customers" - just fine them more and more and make lots of money.
HMRC system - never!!
I insist all DIY payroll clients do NOT use the HMRC system as in my view it is by far the worst on the market:
1. Rubbish screens.
2. Rubbish support.
3. My fist client 3 years ago found the HMRC system fell over when she tried to post. They said "Yes there's a glitch, we'll let you know." They never did of course but fined her £400.
4. I have never used HMRC software. But on FOUR separate occasions returns I had submitted to HMRC - 2 self-assessment, 2 CIS monthly - were deleted some weeks after submission by an unknown HMRC person or piece of rubbish software.
HMRC then fined my clients £100 for each "late" submission. Had I used their own software, those fines would have stuck as all record of me going anywhere the database had been wiped entirely, the HMRC people on the phone were firmly pointing the finger at me until I had proved to them it was their own rubbish system where the problem lay.
RTI will be meltdown, I promise you! First all senior HMRC staff should attend Project Brewery. Once they have learnt to run a [***]-up in a brewery (for them this will be an 8 week intensive course) I'll consider letting them loose on RTI.
As Mmr.mischief says RTI will be a disaster
I have about 10 payroll schemes which I cannot get HMRC to close down, despite my repeated efforts.
I wait with bated breath for RTI penaties (I suspect much akin to CIS monthly filing penalties) where schemes which should have been closed down up to 5 years ago, begin to suffer penalties for non-submission. I can't wait (sigh!).
RTI - its our own fault
RTI is an inevitable step in the compulsion route to online services, which accountants failed to object to from the outset. Maybe I am in a minority of 1 but however much online services are an advantage (which they are when they work well) I think there should always have been a paper alternative for those who won't or can't use computers or the internet - for people who were able to do paper forms. Once compulsion was accepted - and no accountancy body made a fuss about it - we were doomed to RTI, iXBRL and who knows what next? How long before monthly income and expenditure has to be reported online for VAT registered businesses? Perhaps not yet, but there is an inevitable trend towards complete control, and it is too late to do anything about it now.
Monthly reporting
"How long before monthly income and expenditure has to be reported online for VAT registered businesses?"
Ha! ha! This brought a smile to my face and a tear to my eye at the same time.
I am Company Secretary of a DORMANT company and already have to report monthly via long-winded telephone exchanges to the Office for national Statistics the monthly turnover figures, separating out the earned income and the grants. It's a real bind. No prizes for what numbers I have to enter.....
Each simple question takes about a minute to answer; here's why...(familiar to anybody?):-
e.g. "Please now tell us the grant income you received for the month of (new voice - April) giving the number to the nearest thousand. For example if your turnover was (new voice - 300) thousand pounds, enter "3", "zero", "zero", followed by the hash key. If your turnover was (new voice - 500) pounds or less enter "zero" followed by the hash key".
At this point I quickly press 0 on my telephone, followed by the hash key.
"You have entered "zero". If this is correct press 1 on your handset. If this is incorrect press 2 on your handset, followed by the hash key"
And so it goes on.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I have begged them to "let me off" this gruelling task but to no avail. I hate it when the monthly letter lands in my in-tray threatening me with penalties under section 4 of the Statistics of Trade Act 1947 unless I play along with this little charade.
Now to get on with something a bit more productive....
Happy weekend,
P2