HMRC reassures agents on facsimile tax returns. By John Stokdyk

What happens if you miss the 31 October deadline, and have every intention to e-file, but for some reason, the electronic filing is rejected?

Will the Revenue accept the computer generated paper Return, and will there be a penalty?

And what about forms R40 and those SA100s that we cannot submit by FBI e.g some returns dealt with by PD1? In a recent conversation with HMRC I was advised to continue to lobby the Revenue about these type of returns as they havent thought everything through.

I agree with Peter. What happens when e-filing fails after 31 October ? The revenue want us to file over the internet and for the majority of practitioners that is what they want as well but there are times when e-filing is not accepted. In those circumstances I print off a return and send it to the Tax Office. However proposed legislation will mean a £100 penalty. Is this fair when the problem lies with the Revenue's system not accepting the return ?

All the HMRC appears to be saying is that they do not care what type of form agents may print for their clients to approve - whether it looks like a tax return or not.

They are not saying that agents/clients can submit facsimile tax returns to HMRC, which is what we need when we cannot file an internet return.

I file around 100 returns ech year online, and I am a supporter of the system. However for various reasons (I blame the software)I usually end up with two or three returns which the system won't accept. At this point in future I will have to ask for a paper reurn from the IR, risking penalties. Yet again the Revenue haven't thought it through, and we get a good kicking. What a bunch.

Lord Carter has pushed for greater use of electronic submission of tax returns but there seems some confusion about whether late returns can be submitted electronically.

I spoke to the online helpdesk who advise that you can submit them electronically provided the 3rd party programme allows it.

I then asked the 3rd party software house who understood that you couldn't but said that their programme would not prevent submission if acceptable to HMRC.

I will try to do so next time I have a late return to do, which should be shortly.

In the meantime, this matter needs to be clarified and, if Lord Carter's advice is to be followed, HMRC need to ensure that it is possible to file all returns electronically.

I have three tax returns to prepare and I am registered with the Govt gateway to file them all electroncally.

One is my personal return and last year I couldn't file it on line because I had a bit of trust income and the HMRC websites form was not able to deal with that. I have not tried yet this year.

One is a partnership return but I am told by the HMRC websitr that I have to buy some proprietary software to do this on line. Am I really supposed to buy the tax return??

The third is a trust return and it seems that too is not available on line.

I thought that they wanted to encourage us to file on line, but I am thouroughly discouraged.

All this "reassurance" says is that our file copy can be a facsimile one if we want. It says absolutely nothing about the return that is filed with HMRC. As far as I can see, they still seem to be insisting that computer-generated returns are filed online and that they have no intention of accepting such filed in hard copy.

I wonder how they intend dealing with repaired returns? I've just had to amend mine for last year and cannot do this online - so I've printed out the Revenue's PDF version of my return and scribbled the amendments on the face of it. Not exactly encouraging.