Agents and VAT - errors at HMRC end

Announcement from HMRC about cause of errors reported here previously

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I've received an email from HMRC's Customer Relationship and External Stakeholder team this morning - as follows ...

"Customer Migration Issue 

As you may be aware, HMRC recently started moving VAT customer records from the legacy VAT mainframe to the newly integrated Enterprise Tax Management Platform (ETMP).  This activity has led to an issue for some Agents with non-MTD clients, who have been receiving an incorrect message in the Agent Online Self-Service (AOSS) account.

This happens when an Agent logs to their AOSS, selects VAT, sees the VAT Client list, and selects a client whose record has been unknowingly moved on to ETMP.  Agents are receiving an incorrect message informing them that the client has signed up to Making Tax Digital (MTD), even when the client has not yet done so.

This message will direct Agents to log into the Government Gateway (GG) using their Agent Services Account (ASA) credentials.  Any Agent whose client has not joined MTD that sees this message should continue through the screens to sign into their ASA (or create an ASA) to file their client's non MTD VAT return.

This issue will affect around 190,000 businesses whose account has been migrated or will be migrated in the coming months.  We apologise for any confusion this may cause - we are currently working on a solution to prevent this incorrect message."

Hope this helps anyone currently experiencing this problem!

Replies (4)

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By BIGWAL
21st May 2021 13:30

No doubt explains why I'm unable to move existing Vat registered client over to MTD filing. Been trying all week .

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Replying to BIGWAL:
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By rmillaree
21st May 2021 17:02

I did one wednesday that came through this afternoon - i may be lucky that our client wsnt one of the 190k unlucky pool

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By rmillaree
21st May 2021 17:14

only 190k errors phew

Ok i have read this text and its sligtly unclear to me what they are saying - that may be my stupidity ?

"Any Agent whose client has not joined MTD that sees this message should continue through the screens to sign into their ASA (or create an ASA) to file their client's non MTD VAT return."

this has lost me - are they saying we need to file within the new asa account even though they are non mtd ? i am not saying i don't believe that the returns will be available to be submitted in the new gateway but i havent seen any such functionality in the new asa account as of yet. perhaps i am mixing up my asa's my aoss's and my etmp's must admit cant remeber ever having heard the term aossbefore - i am presuming this is simply our old agent gateway (or should i be saying oag)

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Replying to rmillaree:
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By Hugo Fair
21st May 2021 17:48

I know what you mean (but not necessarily what they mean) ... on the other hand at least it lays out what words lie behind the letters in 5 acronyms!

What would be nice (and I've been requesting for several years) would be a one page diagrammatic showing how all these 'channels' do/don't relate to each other ... and which ones to use depending on your objective before starting.
Of course it would need to be kept up-to-date like other pages on GOV.UK - but if it was only a single click away from most pages, then we might all stop wasting quite a lot of time.

At the moment, when I read articles like that email I end up feeling like someone's shouting at me rather than trying to communicate with (let alone help) me!

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