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Clusterf***!
Ladies and gentlemen there is only one word that can describe this:
CLUSTERf***! http://hmrcisshite.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/hmrcs-rti-not-fit-for-purpose....
They haven't stopped issuing refunds at all
Only this morning I had 4 separate emails in my inbox from HMRC advising that I have been repaid GBP632.95.
Also still being received
Actually got some in the bank this morning as well.
Is it actually only Cheap Accounting who have had their refunds stopped? For that matter, why is a named firm getting publicity for something that, even from their own words, is hearsay. If I told AccountingWeb that I "understood" HMRC were planning to employe chimpanzees to do data input, could I get free publicity without having that "understanding" fact-checked?
Nope not just us :-)
Actually got some in the bank this morning as well.
Is it actually only Cheap Accounting who have had their refunds stopped? For that matter, why is a named firm getting publicity for something that, even from their own words, is hearsay. If I told AccountingWeb that I "understood" HMRC were planning to employe chimpanzees to do data input, could I get free publicity without having that "understanding" fact-checked?
Hi
Nope not just us :-)
Hopefully sharing the information I've been given can help the tax payers who would have received incorrect demands or refunds. It's rather more than hearsay :-)
More than happy to pass on details to media of those who can provide constructive commentary when called upon - they are always looking for good commentators.
Just ping me your details on a message and I’ll pass them along next time someone calls – hate to think you feel I am hogging the accountancy limelight :-) Hope that helps :-) If you're popping along to the Practice Excellence conference we could meet up & say hi :-) Would be nice to meet such an active AWeb member in person.
Hearsay
This is the bit I'm saying is hearsay. Hopefully sharing the information I've been given can help the tax payers who would have received incorrect demands or refunds. It's rather more than hearsay :-)
You stated you "understood" repayments had been halted. This is clearly not the case, but at least you only "understood" it to be the case rather than incorrectly stating it as fact. Regardless, since the more important part of the story is being reported in national newspapers (a Telegraph article is even included above) I am unsure why you are being given credit for revealing this. Possibly you could enlighten me. Elaine Clark, who runs the tax practice Cheap Accounting, said she understood that repayments for 2013/14 had been halted.
let's have a chat
You'll have to help me here - could you enlighten me as to why I have been given the credit for revealing this :-) It's clearly the Telegraph that revealed it and if you read there story they give no credit :-) You do seem to have rather jumped to some incorrect assumptions but of course I am very sure you will enlighten me where once again you feel I am at fault :-) More than happy to have a discussion with you about it but it would be good to see a thread stay on track of the original story. Why don't I give you a call and we can discuss any concerns that you have. More than happy to chat.This is the bit I'm saying is hearsay. Hopefully sharing the information I've been given can help the tax payers who would have received incorrect demands or refunds. It's rather more than hearsay :-)You stated you "understood" repayments had been halted. This is clearly not the case, but at least you only "understood" it to be the case rather than incorrectly stating it as fact. Regardless, since the more important part of the story is being reported in national newspapers (a Telegraph article is even included above) I am unsure why you are being given credit for revealing this. Possibly you could enlighten me. Elaine Clark, who runs the tax practice Cheap Accounting, said she understood that repayments for 2013/14 had been halted.
Quote is not credit
You are right that the Telegraph story does quote you, and I will grant I did not notice that. My apologies for that. However, I cannot help noting that your name only appears very much in the context of "when this story broke, we spoke to an accountant". The quotes are fairly generic as well, any accountant would have said the same. It's clearly the Telegraph that revealed it and if you read there story they give no credit :-)
The story is actually about a leaked e-mail. The story gives no indication that you leaked the e-mail, and it would be surprising if you had. To have been responsible for that you would have had to have worked for HMRC wouldn't you? That is generally a requirement for leaking internal e-mails from within any organisation. If you genuinely had direct involvement in an internal HMRC e-mail being leaked, please provide details of how you managed to do this.
So, in all honesty, it looks to me like the Telegraph received a leaked e-mail, and wanted to include quotes from accountants. For whatever reason, they had you on their contacts lists so you were one of the people they garnered quotes from. That is not the same as revealing the story, and the "revelation" here is still you passing on something that is already in the public domain from the Telegraph article. If I have misunderstood the chain of events, please do feel free to clarify.
[Comment moderated - Ed]
It will also come as no surprise that, given my feelings about how publicity is being gained here, I do NOT wish to be associated with your media contacts.
One employer - really?
On the basis of the info in the "leaked email" it'll have to be one damn big employer. The cynic in me asks if it could be a public sector employer - surely not HMRC?! Ha ha Anyway based on "what I heard" this was a bigger issue than just one employer. Time will tell of course. That said - I thought companies had to run a final submission to close the tax year down in RTI - so I'm a tad confused by the HMRC statement.
It's a bit stupid to 'fess up to receiving this error if HMRC are pointing out that it's because of the accounting firm in the first place.
confused?
The error is due to their (HMRC's) system - i.e. the year end reconciliation process. For the avoidance of any doubt HMRC is not pointing out that it's due to an accounting firm - ours or any others for that matter :-)It's a bit stupid to 'fess up to receiving this error if HMRC are pointing out that it's because of the accounting firm in the first place.
P800
My guess is that they are only talking about the P800 rebates, which are nearly always wrong, mainly because they don't cross reference to SA, and so they dish out the rebates twice. But that is just one of a multitude of ridiculous errors I have seen...a lot going the other way too. It's been like that for a few years now, god only knows how much it's costing the country.
I have only had a few P800s for 2013-14, one was wrongly asking for £2,000, as it had accidentally left off the tax paid ! Not good at all.
PAYE P800s
I had found this out this week too! We run the Payroll for a director of his own limited company (no other PAYE sources) and HMRC issued a P800 that had incorrect figures. Upon calling them HMRC advised me that they had made a mistake as the RTI info had doubled up for the year. Thank goodness that they can sort this out as my client was under the impression (correctly so) that we had been running his Payroll correctly. The underpayment of nearly £700 was written off. The only 'reason' that HMRC could provide me for this error occurring was because the client had changed from paying himself weekly to monthly - and apparently this may happen to many other clients. Another day, another dollar!
Assumptions
It seems whomsoever designed this HMRC system forgot the fundamental aspect of business - change. Only public sector staff can safely assume that they will stay on the same payroll, month after month, and that all RTI submissions work perfectly, linking in the correct way, etc. Assumptions were made for product testing before roll out (did they test?), and that the system could automatically churn out refunds without human intervention . . . It might work like that in the software marketing blurb, but not in real life. As we all know, all you need is a computer to make an even larger mess.
stepurhan
BTW - don't forget to pop me over your details so I can pass them onto media contacts looking for insights into news stories. :-) Thanks
Megastar!
Go girl! You were quoted on the tele news, papers section, last night too. What a star! That'll put the big boys in their place with all their PR megabucks :-D
Fuss
Seems silly 2 active members on here squabbling over a question that was clearly directed at Mr Goodall, come on AWeb it was a valid question and a response will resolve the matter.
Publicity
I often wonder why the 'big Four' and other large practices get so much publicity on here. I suppose it's because they get into the news a lot, but they don't actually help other AWeb members, as do Stepurhan, Steve Kesby, John Groganja, Euan McLennan, BKD, etc. and lots of other sole practitioners and small practices who give their help freely without thought of payment, or even free publicity.
I would expect the views of these contributers to be given priority on AWeb articles, as they are much respected helpers and contributers as fas as the readership is concerned. Promoting non-contributers will always appear to be a publicity promotion, except in this instance the media contacts did help get an accountant into the news.
The news article was wrong, as it said all refunds had been stopped, which is clearly untrue, but no surprise there!
There must be a moral to this story ... somewhere!
thanks Shirley - not!
I often wonder why the 'big Four' and other large practices get so much publicity on here. I suppose it's because they get into the news a lot, but they don't actually help other AWeb members, as do Stepurhan, Steve Kesby, John Groganja, Euan McLennan, BKD, etc. and lots of other sole practitioners and small practices who give their help freely without thought of payment, or even free publicity.
I work for a large firm, and have always tried my best to answer technical queries on Aweb (where I am qualified to do so). Sometimes, I don't have time (because the big firms are big on recoveries and not having any unneccessary 'admin' type time, but I still try to give answers when I can: working for the big guys doesn't make us all monsters - and some of us have worked for smaller practices too, and still remember what it's like! I bet I'm not the only one either...
PS: totally with John S on the weird reaction to Elaine, too. She is good at raising her firm's profile? Well good for her and well done...
How news and PR work
It seems this thread has become more about the merits of comments we quoted from Elaine Clark and her appearance in the national media. The key point of this article is what's actually happening to practitioners and taxpayers out there, not what Elaine Clark has to say about it. Could some of the negative comments being posted here prompted by jealousy at the high profile Elaine Clark enjoys?
Sheepy306 has pointed out that the original question yet to be answered was about why Elaine was quoted and her "understanding" that repayments had been stopped. Stepurhan is perfectly entitled to challenge us on that point and asked why she is a getting publicity for passing on hearsay. What is not appropriate is to start impugning her professional reputation as a result of her talking to journalists and being quoted in the press. The media works in an imperfect, fuzzy way that may not satisfy an accountant's evidentiary standards - so if you're going to try Elaine in the court of public opinion it is not fair to cite the evidence of how journalists have quoted her.
I'll try to illustrate this by explaining how we dealt with the story. The first point to remember is that it developed very quickly (thanks to the Telegraph splash). Speculation will inevitably flood in to fill the vacuum if HMRC or other official sources are not forthcoming. This what happened as we saw it:
The Telegraph got hold of an email that was quite widely circulated to stakeholders; the existence of RTI reconciliation errors was hardly news to anyone associated with AccountingWEB, but the admission of that fact by HMRC and the potential scale of the problem (overestimated in the Telegraph's report) were newsworthy, as was the suggestion that repayments had been stopped.As usual, our first port of call was the HMRC press office. On this occasion we were unable to get any reply on several different phone numbers.Elaine Clark had already blogged and tweeted about the issue and was quoted in several papers, so we gave her a call too and reported that she "understood" repayments had been stopped.As soon as we heard back from HMRC that repayment processes were "continuing as normal", we updated the story. Please note, too, that this neither confirms nor denies that there had been any suspension of repayments. Such is the level of sensitivity (and poor internal information?) that we may struggle to ever get a definitive answer to what happened there - but we have to put our hands up and admit that the Telegraph report that it had was a trigger for giving the story such prominence.An hour or two later HMRC sent us a copy of the supposedly "leaked" stakeholder email, confirming that HMRC did not know the full scale of the problem and admitting that "several thousand" employees might be affected.
This message confirmed suspicions we have been harbouring for the best part of the year about reconciliation problems within the RTI system, so even if our initial response was to chase a press report, the underlying reality merited this attention - which we have followed up with a further story on HMRC's public apology.
Elaine Clark has built up a prominent profile within the profession because she uses social media so effectively to share and discuss issues that matter to her clients and prospects. She does this as a deliberate marketing strategy for CheapAccounting.co.uk and puts a lot of effort into it - for which, incidentally the firm has been recognised as a nominee for our Practice Excellence Award for innovative firms.
That is why she is quoted more often in the general press than other AccountingWEB members. Until you start competing with her on that level, you may as well get used to it. But it also raises the risk that if you stick your head above the parapet, you’re likely to suffer the occasional pot shot.
I would also like to challenge ShirleyM’s comment that AccountingWEB neglects the contributions from the people who offer their advice on the site. This is a very important part of our regular content, and such articles appear on almost a weekly basis:
Email templates for accountants
Auto enrolment case study: Woods Squared
Scottish independence: The accountant’s perspective
As well as getting ideas and comments from AccountingWEB members we also read the national press and sometimes pick up things and contacts that they report too. Occasionally we will report the existence of allegations that we cannot directly substantiate but think that the overall story did merit our immediate attention in this case.
Well said John!
Elaine has worked hard to build up her successful business, she is a consummate professional and is an effective user of social media.
Some in our profession could learn a lot from her, wrt professionalism, courtesy and effective use of social media if they were able to dispense with the green jealousy bug that seems to have infected them.
Did I say that?????
I would also like to challenge ShirleyM’s comment that AccountingWEB neglects the contributions from the people who offer their advice on the site.
I thought I questioned (and indeed answered) why some non-contributers get publicity in front page articles. I certainly did not say that others are neglected. I am sorry if this comes across as me being a moaner, as you have described some AWebbers.
Sad Times
I find it quite sad how all these professionals are arguing the toss over PR....!! I've probably just put myself in the firing line for such a comment, but life's too short to be getting all worked up over this surely!? HAPPY FRIDAY!
Paye related
It appears that its mainly on Paye refunds that have been effected, though I had to wait ages for a clients large CIS refund to be released by HMRC.
I got one last week
Stating I am due a refund. In my case they have used my month 11 figures.