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VAT online - waiting for the deluge

9th Feb 2010
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Only a couple of months before we have compulsory VAT filing online for many clients. How many are ready?

A quick straw poll while I was chasing tax returns suggests that many clients have done nothing about it, and quite a few are going to have problems. I visited an elderly sole trader who is well over the turnover threshold for online VAT, keeps an immaculate set of manual records and has no idea what all this online stuff is about. I think his 1960s transistor radio is about the most high-tech device in his house!

He is one of quite a large number of clients who are going to need some hand holding with filing their VAT returns online. Can we handle it? Do we want to commit resources to do this for clients? Over the next few weeks we need to put something together that we can offer to these clients, maybe a filing only service for clients who are capable of preparing their own returns but just don't have the technology.

If clients have been quiet about this so far, just wait for the flood gates to open – if your annual turnover was £100,000 or more on 31 December 2009, HMRC will send you a letter this month explaining that you have to submit your VAT Returns online and pay your VAT electronically for all returns starting on or after 1 April 2010. There will be a guide with the letter, which explains how you take the first step - registering and enrolling for VAT Online services. That's likely to elicit the first cries for help, so we need to be ready!

However we decide to play it, there are going to be a lot of clients who need to register with the Government Gateway to be ready for online filing. You would think HMR&C would simply issue online passwords, etc automatically to all affected VAT-registered businesses rather than waiting for them to apply. Unlike self assessment returns though, there is no facility to file a client's VAT return online without a specific VAT 64-8 AND the client being personally enrolled for online filing! If it's going to be compulsory why make it any harder for people to do it?
 
Bear in mind that you don't yet have to submit your VAT Return online and pay VAT electronically if you registered for VAT before 1 April 2010 and your turnover stays below £100,000. However, HMR&C say that it's likely that all VAT-registered businesses will have to file their returns online and pay electronically by 2012, at the latest, so it's only a matter of time.

Nice to see the customer-friendly side of the old Customs and Excise coming out in this issue. The guidance notes on their website add that:
 
“you must submit your VAT Return online and pay your VAT electronically... even if:
- you don't own or have access to a computer with links to the internet,
- you lack computer skills,
- you disagree in principle with compulsory online filing.”
 
They then point you to the online help articles - which you're hardly going to be in a position to read if you fall into one of these categories! Nice try.

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Replies (4)

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By User deleted
10th Feb 2010 11:33

Circular argument

If you can read the guidance on the website, then you must have access to a pc with internet connectivity!

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By djw090
10th Feb 2010 11:38

Date of VAT reg

So far when setting clients up for online we have had 2 problems.

1) Date of original VAT reg. Thankfully in the letters that have started to come out from HMRC they are telling people the date of reg.

2) Reading some of the material you may think that if you set up a DD 5 days before your VAT is due that will do. However, the system will not take the VAT for a return that has been submitted before the DD is set up.

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By ianmckechnie
09th Apr 2010 18:53

A Total Shambles

This has been a prime example of the incompetence which HMRC can produce if they really put their minds to it.  Problems encountered so far :

- Phone up to check effective date of registration, only to find that they have lost the 64-8.  Eventually speak to a supervisor who will either a) find that the 64-8 was in fact not passed on to the 'Customs' side of HMRC by the equally incompetent 'Revenue' side or b) accept a fax of the original 64-8.

- Enter the relevant data to request authorisation, only to find that "Due to a technical problem some of the client names in the table below may have been replaced with a hyphen. To view the client name please click on the hyphen. HM Revenue & Customs apologise for any inconvenience caused."  Of course, when the hyphen is ticked, no client name appears - clients have to be identified by the VAT number or client reference - which takes time and patience (it's difficult enough with 10 or so clients on the unauthorised list, goodness knows how much time would be wasted - sorry, needlessly charged to clients - with many names on there.)

Also, in case HMRC have not worked this out 'HM Revenue & Customs apologise for any inconvenience caused' is just not good enough.

- In one particular case I went through all the above points, submitted the request for authorisation, (which was accepted) and then found that several days later the client has mioved from the list 'awaiting authorisation' back to the list of 'un-submitted requests'.  HMRC are still to provide an explanation for this.

They are also still trying to explain why for this particular client the submission fails using the five pieces of information as supplied by them.

- When the authorisation code eventually gets issued and entered, and the client appears on the 'authorised' list, for some reason - again not explained by HMRC the client reference carefull entered by us does not get transferred over.  So it has to be done again : more time wasted.

HMRC have so far resisted claims for costs incurred by their incompetence, so my suggestion to all of you out there is this :

Every time you find a problem, submit a formal written complaint.  They waste lots of our time : we should waste theirs.  Perhaps they might then make an effort to get things right in future.

Ian McKechnie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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By coodey
03rd Aug 2010 11:41

HMRC's VAT online 'service' is a joke, but sadly the irony is wa

I am not one to normally get involved in these kinds of discussions but hope my mini diatribe will be a therapeutic outpouring for me!

Being one of the first companies to be registered for VAT online I have again spent a quarterly hour of my life banging my head on the desk, pulling my hair out and generally losing the plot Victor Meldrew style having attempted to submit our VAT return online. Yet again, HMRC's website failed half way through, having told me that my user ID and password were wrong. Since I have these stored in a secure electronic document so that I don't forget them, (along with the banks' websites, our BACS systems and other sundry secure websites etc etc) having tried initially to key the details I simply copied and pasted them into the relevant fields, and bingo! I am in.  I merrily keyed my VAT return figures, saved a draft and then re-checked the entries. Fine. That was what I thought. I proceeded to click the submit button at which point I was prompted for my user ID and password again, which I entered, again. Oh no you don't! We're not having that it would be too easy! The sound of a slow clanging echoed in my brain. You are locked out you unsuspecting fool. Click here to access the "Online Services helpdesks" it said. Click I did, and called I did too 0845 010 8500 was the number. At this point I was in disbelief; I knew I had entered the correct user ID and password - it was the exact same one that I had entered to log in - and yet I had been summarily booted out like John Terry from Wayne Bridge's engagement party. Perhaps that's a bit strong but I hope you get the jist. Anyway I called the number and was greeted by HMRC's recorded message saying in a medium-winded way that they are too busy because they've wound up everyone else trying to access their system and to bog off and call back later. Just open that wound up and get some nice coarse salt please.... I decided to try calling back and ten minutes later get through to some poor brow beaten Scotsman who tells me he doesn't know why it kicked me off, and that if I want to complain I should write (no, not email,) to their online services complaints team! Brilliant, masters of irony this lot. He navigates us through their website's problem and I manage to submit the return and then find a URL asking for 'Customer Feedback' which I cheerfully complete thinking it's my chance to vent my annoyance at their worse than third rate 'system', only to find that on clicking the submit button it tells me that my complaint is not in the correct format and cannot be submitted!! At this point I am looking for the secret camera, where is Beadle, has he returned from the grave for my benefit? ho-ho-ho we shall laugh at this arch demon wind-up.

But it's not. I was trying to submit a six figure VAT return, that's all. Enter and submit 9 boxes of numbers, no more. There is nothing I, or you, or anyone else, can, or will do, to change or improve their 'system' (I don't feel I can dignify their 'system' withouth the speech marks as if they were a commercial business they would be defunct). Nobody at HMRC gives a flying fart, nor are they interested in doing so. Why should they, dutiful law abiding subjects?

On reflection, the irony of that entire hour of my life could, nay should be scripted into a wind up comedy sketch, you have no other choice than to laugh.  Just pay up and shut up. 

 

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