Self Assessment Online copes with deadline workload

I think in previous years there has been a dispensation where returns filed on February 1st would not be fined.
As I recall, this was to cover the situation where Returns were placed in Revenue letterboxes and there was no way of ascertaining whether it was posted before or after midnight.

I do not know if this dispensation has been extended to this year.

HOWEVER, the far more serious point about late filing is that the enquiry window is extended by three months where the Return is late.

This will be more or less serious depending on the contents of the Tax Return in question.

Michael - if you guarantee me that HMRC will properly deal with a 64-8 sent in October to enable me to file online at any time prior to the deadline, then I will file online. Failing that, you guarantee me that HMRC will not issue a late filing penalty for a return hand delivered at any time prior to the deadline, then I will not ask for a receipt. If you can't guarantee that, then I don't see why I should not take every opportunity to prove that I have done what I am supposed to do.

I heard somewhere that if you deliver your tax return on 1st Feb (not overnight on 31st Jan) that whilst it is technically late, it won't incur a fine - was there case law on this? Perhaps it was just wishful thinking!

Yes I agree. Having just one deadline for SA returns is crazy in the extreme.It puts pressure on everyone including HMRC. Gordon needs to think outside the box..( no pun intended)

We took on a new client mid-January, and used the new agent authorisation system instead of a 64-8. The authorisation code came through within a week and was activated on Friday 27th January. The client was on our agent list on Monday 30th January upon return to work after the weekend, and we successfully filed his return on Monday afternoon.

We have all heard how the Revenue continued to make life difficult by refusing to issue receipts for those SAR's submitted last minute.

However our local office (Oxford) took it a step further by stopping everyone getting to a reception desk to hand in those forms, instead we all had to join the general enquiry queue and wait until a member of staff appeared to take the forms. This could involve a wait of as much as 30 minutes (our experience) when all we needed was to hand documents over.

Arnold Brewer FCA
Business Accountancy Consultants Ltd

As we get older, each deadline seems to take its toll on us more than the last. We took in 54 returns on the 31st January to Merry Hill and we had been posting returns up until 13 January.

As a mother of three children I would like to spend at least one Christmas with my family without our workload spoiling the festive season before they grow up and leave home. I feel the answer would be to give a twelve month deadline of 5 April.

Stephanie Jackson, Partner, Phipps Wakefield Accountants.

Mainly good expreiences. I got only one instance throughout the last 3 months where there was no access to the Revenue website and we were in and out of there like rabbits checking things. We still have one Return that's in Pending (but it's been there since November) but that apart, it's mainly good.

But there's a brief shopping list:

a) 64-8 system. Needs attention and it's one of our Feb/March tasks to clean it up as far as we can see it. The electronic 64-8 system will be a help in this but the manual system performed appallingly.

b) Widen the scope of FBI-acceptable returns to encompass negative amounts and also to allow for changes of accounting date.

c) Make the error message system on rejection a bit more human-friendly. Afer a while you glean what Error Message 3000 might mean but it should be more transparent.

d) Return acceptance messages seem to come through with a UTR on which is no bloody good and creates extra work, which is much appreciated by 15-year old daughters but is an unnecessary extra chore. And yes I know I could ignore them, but a file copy is useful.

e) The entry to the system is set to default to UTR and not taxpayer name. Dunno about everyone else, but I think of clients by name and not number.

All of which sounds a bit picky but hopefully the Revenue read these sorts of exchanges for ideas on changing things.

Up to present, I have two cases where Parnership Returns were filed by Internet last Summer/Autumn BUT clients received reminders indicating Returns were still outstanding...

Fortunately,I have the emails confirming sucessful receipt of the Tax Returns.

Spoke to electronic filing bods at HMRC who confirmed Returns had been sucessfully received but local HMRC office had no record...

No doubt, a wodge of late filing penalties will be issued around the end of this month...

I despair!

Has anyone else had same experience?

Why do we all need receipts for payments sent by mail ?
Surely the bank statement of the client or indeed if we take the money from the client, from our account is receipt enough. I would hate to think
a) we are charging our clients 'extra' for supplying the receipt by enclosing a letter with payments asking for a receipt.
b) HMRC would no doubt argue that the issuing of receipts for payments or indeed returns is not cost effective. Indeed HMRC ask us not to enclose letters with cheque payments, simply payslips and cheques.
We should not be blaming HMRC if we leave filing until 19:00 on 31st. Do it online for goodness sake.

As an industry surely we have to take a step back and say 'In this modern age do we really need receipts' and from my experience probably not. We are too quick to blame the HMRC for slow and outdated systems. Lets step back and take a long look in the mirror.

We are in a small practice with under 200 clients. We managed to almost submit about 95% before January 1st.

The remaining 5% really gave us a hell of time to the extent that 4 clients finally submitted requested information on the 30th. It was indeed satisfying on the Tuesday morning- just rushing filing online about 12 Returns just smoothly- That was wonderful.

In effect I virtually closed the day with the Tax authorities in our area as I had to complete those four returns at the Tax office premises as late as 19.20 GMT. And guess what handed over those Returns at 19.28hours meaning no photocopying of those Returns.

This year we avoided the architecturally displeasing Revenue Offices as much as possible
and used FBI to good effect. The truth is that the pressure of the 31st January will probably always be there unless we change our jobs.. it seems to me that it is human nature to leave things until the last moment - especially if those things involve the pain of taxation and the payment of a tax cheque, not to mention the pain of the client's discovery that a final payment for one year coincides once again with the first for the next. So once again here is the new SA tax year's resolution - everything will be done before the summer holidays.... well say before Christmas. Holiday in January 2007..

All work will be superbly planned, software and computers will work excellently and clients will hand over perfect records and tax data - in fact they will ask us to increase our bills as they cannot believe how hard we work on their compliance affairs. Oh I nearly forgot - the Government will simplify taxation by cancelling CGT, IHT and NIC and repeal the legislation on Money Laundering. Accounting Web members will become famous for solving the Pensions crisis.

A late but happy new year from a very tired member.

As usual ELS worked perfectly, throughout the year. No need for 64-8s ( if you have the clients authority to file why do the Revenue need it as well ? ). Polite and efficient Helpdesk who know their system. Its got to be more secure than using the internet which, in the Revenue's hands, is tainted. Why ditch a system which is simple and works ?

We delivered by hand our last remaining returns at 7.15pm on 30th January. The office was almost deserted and we received instant personal and friendly service. However no receipts were proferred. The staff were frazzled, huge numbers of unrepresented taxpayers to deal with during the day so a sympathetic attitude won the day - what a creep. I even signed their visitors book with a nice comment - it may serve as evidence of my visit when the filing penalties start rolling in. On line filing for me this year !

I agree with all that is said about the 64-8 problems.

Whilst we should applaud the IT infrastructure improvements so that actual on-line filing is now realtively painless (though I was somehat mystified as to why the schema does not accept negative costs in the SE P&L page), without a rapid ability to authorise agents on-line, many lately-engaged clients will need returns delivering manually. This defeats the object of having FBI, when the last minute rush is on and filing time is at a premium. It also creates a service problem if the client wants an up-to-date positioning on his liability, and has lost recent statements.

Please, therefore, Mr Varney and your managers, could you attempt to enhance the speed and effectiveness, and therefore the process, of getting these wretched forms, paper or on-line, through the system, and, as has been said before, keep them there.

Where the Tax District acknowleged the existence of a 64-8 but the client did not appear on the Gateway, the problem was, apparently, that someone had not set a tag correctly. By Saturday the on line filing technical help desk were able to deal with this over the 'phone, so that clients appeared instantly on the Gateway and returns could be filed on line. Generally I found that FBI worked very well and we did not have any problems with disappearing clients.

All went much better than last year except for two problems:

1. There are some circumstances where the efiling system will not take a return even though it is correct, which is irritating.

2. The business of 64-8's has got to be sorted out, several clients were there last year and are not this, several are on the Gateway but not on HMRC website although in this circumstance you can still efile.

So that checking is made easier it would be helpful if the Gateway could show clients names as well as the UTR as the HMRC site does.

Incidentally on one of my several conversations with the (generally) helpful team on the helpdesk I found that an online originated 64-8 does not carry the complete rights that an old fashioned one does, he recommended always to use the paper ones.

Does anyone know what limitations there are with the online version.

The final beef is that some successfully filed returns did not get the email acknowpedgment that we have all grown to love!

Cliff Jenner

This year I agree the tax offices were far better at receiving the tax returns via FBI. However what really annoys is that a 64-8 is submitted and the IR writes to us as agents but the client is not logged on the IR gateway, thereby forcing us to handdeliver paper copies. Their resolution is for us to contact every tax office and get them to amend this. Having spoken to one office they said it was a Gateway problem not theirs. The only solution it seems is to re-submit the 64-8. What a waste of time!

Moan - Tax office staff who do not understand the cold hard world outside the tax office!

When we asked about receipts for returns - we had not heard in advance these would not be issued - we were asked why we had not filed on-line. Very unsympathetically.

Because this is a relatively new client but the 64-8 was lodged with your central processing area over three weeks ago, we said!
Still not listed with our clients on the website.

My initial reaction is that the Online filing worked fine and on only one occaision (Sunday pm funnily enough) was there a delay in issuing a receipt. The main comment I would make is that where we were unable to file online because 64-8's submitted as far back as November had not been processed or, if they had been processed, something about their capture was incorrect such that we were still not authorised as far as the online system was concerned. I appreciate that authorisation operates slightly differently now but what is the 64-8 team in CAAT Newcastle-Upon-Tyne doing that such documents seemingly aren't processed correctly for greater than 8 weeks?

I must endorse the comments from Fred & Ken.
Like Fred, I have had a few returns rejected because clients were not authorised for on-line filing even though 64-8s had been sent in long ago, and others where returns were accepted and filed online where a 64-8 was submitted only 10 days previously. This lack of consistency can be frustrating.
As for clients, no matter what we do to chase them, there will always be a few who leave everything as late as possible and then try to blame us. I even interviewed 2 brothers at 4pm on Tuesday and got them to sign there returns in front of me. They were quite impressed when the email receipt came back within seconds, but will doubtless blame me when they are charged interest because their tax was not paid on time.
One other gripe - why cannot HMRC issue statements of account after early December? If a return is e-filed and processed in December, I fail to see why a correct statement and demand cannot be issued straight away. After all, this should be a fairly automatic process. Perhaps it's another sneaky way of GB squeezing a few more pounds out of taxpayers in interest and surcharges!

With 95% of clients returns filed by the due date and 72% of these on line, the system has worked well. I agree the comments re 64-8 and, in particular, statements of account. One of our partnership returns was rejected because, with a change of year end, there was no in year accounts so income was nil. Interest however (being solicitors) was earned and the checking system does not allow there to be interest without an income figure!
On the matter of receipts, if a client brings in papers to our offices and asks for a receipt, we would surely give one as a matter of customer relationships. Perhaps the lack of consideration will lead HMRC to refer to their 'customers' as taxpayers again (or should that be paymaster for the protected pensions?)

I took a number of Returns and cheques to our local tax office and the helpful women who date stamped the cheques/Returns also stamped my file copy as proof of delivery.

However, when I went yesterday afternoon it was the Manager who was taking the Returns & cheques and he refused to move the date stamp over the paper I put on the table and press down. It is completely illogical as to why that could not be done and a typical example of someone being a "JobsWorth" rather than a sane human being.

Yes, I would agree clients shouldn't leave it until the last minute but it's the real world we live in and they do leave it as late as possible. Yes he could have stamped the receipt but he didn't because he failed to engage his brain....

The Revenue do appear to be improving each year with handling the deadline; although I do think that the refusal to even stamp a file copy of a hand-delivered return for our records is a retrospective step. Having had a problem with our local district sitting on cheques for several months last year, it will be interesting to see if our word is accepted that Returns were delivered on time when the penalty notices are issued. If there is any question over delivery, it surely has to be in the Revenue's favour to have acknowledged receipt. Or are they also thinking that the £100 penalty is a waste of time? If they are, then it should be scrapped for those Returns which are delivered shortly after the 31st deadline as well as for those who claim (honestly or otherwise)to have delivered the return on time.