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How can these problems be avoided in future?
Isn't there a saying that training is expensive but not training is more so? My guess is that insufficient resources have been made available to HMRC to enable it to prepare properly for the 2016/17 filing season. The way to avoid these problems happening in future is for HMRC to be properly resourced.
The sad consequence of the lack of investment for 2016/17 is that we are all now paying the price. It costs clients, ourselves and HMRC far more to produce and process a paper return (wet signature, postage, stationery, re-keying...).
False economy Mr Osborne.
This issue also managed to make its way to the Sunday Times yesterday: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/online-tax-return-computer-says-no-69...
Albeit with a slightly sillier headline...
Nothing of any great substance to add, so will stick to grumbling.
I'd naively assumed that non-submittable returns would still be a rarity, but we're already seeing quite a few of them.
Maybe as a tax agent I shouldn't complain - can make us look quite good when you explain to Mr & Mrs OMB that a bit of planning with salary, divs and interest on director loans can give some nice results.
Its the people with pension income along with interest & divs and maybe a bit of trust income & foreign savings who are trying to work out their own tax that I feel sorry for.
To avoid these problems in the future? Probably best not to add in massive complication to the tax computations of relatively low income people. If you do insist on doing it, then have some consultation in advance to ensure that all of the consequences of the complications are understood and can be planned for.
Could the flooding in Shipley have been an issue? The office was closed for year at a time when HMRC was working on the 2015/16 returns.
Just stop making tax more complicated than it already is. I've been in accountancy for 35 years and I don't think I've ever seen personal tax so complicated with the various claw backs (child benefit & personal allowance) and the new personal savings allowance and zero rate bands for interest and dividends. They've made tax far too complicated than it needed to be. May I ask just what is the point of the office of tax simplification - things have got much worse ever since it was created.
Ken is right - we allow politicians to interfere with our tax system and expect HMRC to deal with the computational problems this creates - if a politician comes up with an idea such as the clawback of child benefit (a purely politically motivated amendment to the tax system) it seems that no-one is prepared to stand-up for the tax system and object because it over-complicates calculation. The Office of Tax Simplification seems to be ignoring the elephant in the room - get rid of the purely politically inspired alterations and the system becomes simpler, easier to understand for taxpayers, and more likely to get the right answer.
I've never stopped doing manual calculations. Not only does it keep the mind sharp (well perhaps stops it from being fuzzy) but there is always a double check on yourself. I think a lot of people still do, this is why they find problems with software.
This was a fundamental change into the taxation of income, undertaken with no consultation, no preparation, and unveiled on budget day. It's a miracle nothing more important than a few hundred quid on a computation went snap.
The budget has to change from its current form - a heavily politicised confrontation - to a more staid, corporate affair. We have to stop inventing new levers to obfuscate tax increases. If taxes need to go up, raise them, and explain this to the nation.