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TAX NEWS: HMRC apologises for PAYE Online delays. By John Stokdyk

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10th May 2006
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HM Revenue & Customs apologised for long waits and timeouts on Monday as some of the PAYE Online servers malfuctioned under the weight of the increasing workload in the run-up to the 19 May end-of-year filing deadline.

On Monday morning, Doug Scott and several other AccountingWEB members reported getting timeouts and error messages as they tried to file their PAYE returns. HMRC officials said that they had not received many complaints via telephone help lines and estimated that less than 1% of users were affected.

However, they did release the following statement: "We are sorry for the slow running that some employers are currently experiencing. The system is extremely busy at this time and our IT partners are doing what they can to improve matters. In the interim our customers' patience is very much appreciated."

Following a meeting between HMRC and its IT contractors on Wednesday, the department told AccountingWEB, "This issue related to a small number of servers which were not processing as they should have been. As soon as the servers were identified we took them out of live service, and successfully restarted them."

In some cases users, may have experienced temporary problems that were subsequently resolved - but unless they cleared their cache before attempting to reconnect, it was possible they might not know that the problem had cleared, HMRC added.

In terms of capacity, an HMRC spokesman pointed out that there is a larger number of online filers this year as it is now mandatory for companies with 50 or more employees. Smaller companies are also moving online to take advantage of the £250 incentive to do so.

In total, 500,000 P35s have been filed in the past month and P14s for 19 million employees. The success rate for submissions passing the HMRC's data quality test was 96%, the spokesman said.

"So far the system has performed admirably, as BASDA has noted," the spokesman said. "We hope Monday's problems were a one-off caused by the peak workload. As we have said before, we are encouraging employers and agents to file outside of peak periods and not to leave it to the last minute."

Medium-sized companies who have to send in their online returns electronically do not have much time left to make their preparations. It takes up to seven days to get a PIN and activation code, so those who have not yet registered need to do so this week, the spokesman said.

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Replies (19)

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By AnonymousUser
15th May 2006 15:48

You can file without FBI2 or 64-8 in place
Vanessa
If you are using internet-enabled payroll software, you can file on-line for any employer for which you are processing the payroll. I have done this for several people for whom I process payroll although they are not clients as such. You won't be able to access the details on-line but you will receive the confirmation email provided that you have entered your email address in your "agent" area on the HMRC Website.

This is the relevant paragraph on the HMRC Website in the PAYE On-Line page:
Filing-only agent
From April 2005 you will be able to submit end of year returns and in-year forms without the need for forms FBI-2 being processed. You will however need to submit FBI2 for clients if you wish to have access to outgoing forms or for them to appear on your client list.
***You can file returns and send in-year forms online using our own free PAYE software or third party products ***
I hope this helps.
Angela

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By Malcolm Veall
15th May 2006 13:49

Period of Grace
Given the nightmare this has been for so many of us perhaps this is a good moment to point out that there is a period of grace for the P35 returns. It expires at midnight on 29th May. The online filing incentive applies no mater how late you file, the period of grace is for the late-filing penalty.

See:http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/2006online/index.htm at the bottom of the page

Whether filing in the period of grace affects the compliance record for CIS renewals I do not know.

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By Lucyruth
15th May 2006 14:00

RE PAYE online problems
I also had a timeout occur last Monday too quickly for me to do anything other than try to access a client. I had a similar problem on self assessment this morning.

As HMRC are moving towards 100% online filing for both PAYE and self assessment lets hope such problems are a thing of the past, but I won't hold my breath!

I also heard at a small practitioners evening from an HMRC employee that they are trying to encourage more taxpayers to contact them by telephone. Given the time you currently have to wait before you get through to anyone I cannot see this working unless HMRC drastically increase their resources.

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By User deleted
15th May 2006 14:12

You managed to get through!!
Wow!
I've phoned the IR on-line help desk five times in as many days only to be cut off because "they are currently experiencing high call volumes". Duh.

Only time I did manage to get hold of them was 5:30pm on a Sunday afternoon and their systems were down so could not check the status of two employers Returns for me. (Have two emails one says successful, one usuccessful, but both were sent as tests)

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By gilbob
11th May 2006 21:09

Gateway busy
After experiencing the Gateway being "busy" at 5.30pm my payroll team agreed to return to the Office at 7pm tonight. I came along to give them moral support and keep their spirits up.

Guess what, still busy when we decided to call it a day at 8pm and go home. Will the Inland Revenue recompense us for the overtime and inconvenience of their systems being unable to cope a full week in advance of the deadline during "off peak" hours? If so, any suggestions as to whom I should send the bill to?

I am going to go back in to the office at 1am to see if I can get a few submitted. So far we have managed to submit 3 out of about 80 P35's and I am getting more and more concerned as each day goes by. If we can't submit these forms electronically then do we resort to submitting a computer produced substitute by hand and are the Revenue likely to honour the £250 incentive for all our clients?

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By User deleted
11th May 2006 17:31

Don't need FBI2
You don't actually need to have the client on the HMRC portal, or to have filed FBI2 to file online on behalf of your client.

You obviously need to have FBI2 or 64-8 if the Revenue are to talk to you about any information.

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By David Franks
11th May 2006 16:16

deletion of all my PAYE clients
After ringing the HMRC earlier this week to see why one of my PAYE clients was not showing on my account, although it was on the Gateway, they tried to add it but instead delted all my PAYE clients, bar one.They cannot say when this will be rectified.

I now cannot file online. Are my clients supposed to forfeit their £250?

I am at my wits end. I look useless, even though it was not my fault.

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By Tim Robinson
16th May 2006 13:36

Same old story
HMRC seem unable to learn from past mistakes and it worries me that its the same old story whenever a filing deadline approaches.

I filed a P35 using their own software last Friday and the acknowledgement took three hours to arrive. Ended up checking with their helpline that it had been received, which rather defeats the object.

The P35 I filed using Sage first thing this morning (5 hours ago now) has still not been acknowledged, though I am not going to worry because I have proof that it was submitted.

Roll on 2008!

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By Malcolm Veall
16th May 2006 15:14

Don't Rely on it Tim
Last year I filed online from within software, (QuickBooks), I had the message on screen that QuickBooks receives when HMRC servers confirm filing received. No confirmation e-mail, although I did not realise at the time.

8 months later a late filing penalty & there is no filing on HMRC system. Fortunately I had saved a screenshot of the screen message & as far as I know, so far, HMRC Recovery are not pursuing the penalty following my stiff letter.

While Intuit have been very helpful HMRC deny any significance can be attached to the messages received within the program. I gather that the problem for the software houses is that there is no unique number allocated by HMRC to each filing so they can only save the wording of the message, not prove that the filing has taken place.

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By gilbob
12th May 2006 16:30

Update on P35 submissions
Re my earlier posting....

As intimated I went back to the office around midnight and managed to submit about 45 returns before I got too tired at about 2am.

Am releived that more than half are now submitted but very, very annoyed that I have to resort to working such unsociable hours - its unreasonable to ask staff (in my case working mums) to come in at midnight so there is no alternative to me doing it - unless of course the powers that be would devote the proper amount of resources to solve the problem. If this were the first year then perhaps teething problems are to be expected but its not a joke anymore.

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By mallardadvice
16th May 2006 00:35

HMRC Reports few complaints!
Is it any wonder?
Anyone who has sat at their computer for a long time is not then going to sit on the end of a phone call to a call centre firstly going through an interrogation process of pressing button 1, button 2 then button 3, listening to "your call is in a queue...please do not hang up", "your call is important to us"..."your call may be recorded for training purposes" and then be told after half an hour if all the details you enterred are correct, then you need to call the relevant tax office!

HMRC is being a little economic with the truth here. They know the volumes, they know the volume of failures.

They also know how slow they are being issuing authorisation codes to our clients!

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By David Franks
12th May 2006 10:45

please tell me how to file online with unlisted clients?
Please can the person who said I could file online when clients aren't shown tell me how to do this? The clients do not have their own software. If there is a way round this then great. The HMRC were unaware of one and have still not sorted the problem.

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By mattgriffiths
11th May 2006 11:42

(No) Helpline
I have been trying for three weeks to get my clients, whom I filed an FBI2 form last year, reinstated to my authorised clients list. About 100 of them have mysteriously disappeared from the HMR&C list but show up on my government gateway list and nobody can give me a reasonable explanation as to how this has happened or offered any solution to the problem. I write this after repeatedly banging my head against desk, floor, wall...

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By AnonymousUser
11th May 2006 11:29

HMRC
I had to call the HMRC PAYE On Line filing help line twice on Tuesday morning and they were extremely helpful - especially when I mentioned that I was an IRIS user. There was a wait of about 15 seconds once I had pressed all the wretched buttons to get where I wanted to go. Praise given where it is earned.

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By Tim Robinson
17th May 2006 11:07

Ongoing problems
Kerrie

The report which states "The EOY Return has been processed and passed full validation" is generated by Sage when I submit electronically, its not from the HMRC website or email.

And for anyone who cares, i still haven't had the confirmation email from HMRC for the P35 submitted yesterday morning. Just tried to phone the online helpdesk and they cannot deal with questions at the moment 'due to the high volume of calls'

Lord Carter, are you listening?

Tim

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By Malcolm Veall
17th May 2006 11:01

Same as last year
Kerrie,

I would sugest that HMRC are in exactly the same boat as last year, the returns are being stacked up & the validation checks will be made at some future date. They will then have to eat their words about penalties for returns found to have failed validation checks.

I had two clients where the explanatory notes about validation failures on the 04/05 returns were issued, (several months after the filings). The elecronic helpdesk was unable to explain what the error messages meant, they were certainly greek to me.

The e-mail confirmations I have are of of the "received & being processed" type. The confirmation message in QuickBooks is "EYO Return has been processed and passed full validation"

Has anyone actually received the e-mail "full validation" message?

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By pauljohnston
16th May 2006 18:33

One-line submission ref no.
Malcolm, every successful (and maybe non-sucessfull) submission to the Inland Revenue PAYE servers gets a correlation ID. Similar to Self Assessment. I use Payroll Manager from Moneysoft which prints this after a sucessful transmission. If Quickbooks does not supply this perhaps you should ask why!

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By User deleted
17th May 2006 10:13

Full Validation??
Extract from the HMRC link mentioned further down this thread:-

"Checks by the Government Gateway
You will get an e-mail message from the UK Government Gateway saying that we have received your submission. The message will say:

‘The submission for reference < Employer's PAYE Reference > was successfully received on and is being processed’.

This message is NOT confirmation that your Return is correct, it is issued to confirm that we have received your submission. You must wait for the HMRC acceptance message, (below), for confirmation that your Return has been accepted or rejected.

If your Return is rejected by the Gateway, you will get the following message

‘The submission for reference < Employer's PAYE Reference > was received on . Unfortunately it could not be accepted as it failed HMRC data checks.’

Top

Checks by HMRC
After we have received your Return at the Gateway, we will then check whole Returns (that is, all the P14s and the P35 sent at the same time) against our Quality Standard, and will send you an online message saying:

‘The EOY Return has been processed and passed full validation’

If your Return does not get meet the Quality Standard you get a message telling you the reason why your Return failed and give you an error code. You can find details of all the errors. If you cannot find an answer there, please talk to your software provider before contacting the Online Services Helpdesk. You must put right any errors and re-send the Return by 19 May to avoid a late filing penalty.

In most cases we will send these message within a minute, although it will be longer for larger Returns (up to 5 minutes). Please do not attempt to re-send a Return while you are waiting for an acceptance message."

Last year I filed about 80 P35's & so far this year have filed about 50. I always get the message:-

‘The submission for reference < Employer's PAYE Reference > was successfully received on and is being processed’.

But I've NEVER received the message:-

‘The EOY Return has been processed and passed full validation’

Any suggestions?

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DougScott
By Dougscott
12th May 2006 08:18

Even if you do submit successfully.
I've been getting up at 6am every morning to submit a few P35s before the system grinds to a halt.

However even if you do submit successfully are we still going to have to wait months and months for HMRC to refund £250 to the clients who can't offset their on-line refunds against PAYE - which is most of ours?

I am still stunned that any organisation can tell people to work outside office hours - I mean can you see HMRC working outside office hours? Or working at all for that matter.

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