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Waiting for iXBRL

27th Sep 2010
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Not quite what Samuel Beckett had in mind, but maybe the plot's not dissimilar. You wait for ever and nothing ever happens.

At least that what it feels like in practice at the moment - we know that 1 April 2011 is an immoveable date, from that date all Corporation Tax returns will have to be filed online and accompanied by comps and accounts in iXBRL format. The problem is that it's not that straightforward, we really need to get some practice in while there's still an opportunity to fall back to filing on paper. I recall that online filing for Self Assessment posed a few challenges initially, so it was good to have the choice of online or paper for a few years. Now, of course, we file 99% of returns online because it helps to protect clients from HMRCs inefficiencies. And it's the only way to file in the latter part of the filing period, which is when most clients seem to want to file.

No such luxury with Corporation Tax filing, no overlap of paper and online. Why? Because the software companies - Forbes the honourable exception - have been incapable of delivering an iXBRL solution yet. We're still waiting for our supplier, the delivery date being quoted somewhat unhelpfully as "Q4" - which I take to mean the end of the year.

So practically, as a general practitioner, I'm not going to get a chance to have a proper look at iXBRL until February when the personal return filing season is over. Two months to get everything working and systems in place. I even hear whispers that some software suppliers may not release their software until well into 2011, so the opportunity to test online filing may be virtually none for some accountants!

So like most of my fellow practitioners, I'm stuck wondering if I'm going to get my software update in good time - or at all - and frustrated that by the time I know either way it will be far too late to look around the market for an alternative and get it installed, staff trained, etc. Yep, once again they've got us over a barrel, but this time I suppose they'll argue it's the Government's fault.

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