Sorry for the very basic question but I very rarely take on new clients these days (about 2 a year).
The last new client I took on was in August. He wasn't registered for SA so he came to my home office, we completed the CWF1 form together, I printed it, he posted it (on August 26th to the address on page 5 of the CWF1 form).
He still hadn't received a UTR on October 11th so I got him to complete a second form, this time with a signed 64-8 as well. I sent both forms together to the Central Agents Authorising Team on October 12th 2021 by recorded delivery. HMRC signed to confirm receipt of the letter on October 14th 2021.
Neither I or my client have had a reply to either letter (I would expect to see the client appear on my SA clients list once the UTR had been issued).
My question are: 1. Is this length of delay normal at the moment due to HMRC's general crapness at the moment and 2. What method seems to be working best at the moment to get someone registered for SA?
The client is in CIS and is getting fed up of the 30% deductions!
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Holy moly, you need to get set up to do this online, paper forms are taking upwards of 4-5 months at the moment.
Except that online CWF 1 is inclined to reject the clients address. HMRC then email the client to say the application has failed and we would look like idiots had we not pre-warned them that this would happen.
We have tried to do two SA registrations through our agent account in the last week and both have thrown up errors saying NI number doesn't agree to either name/address/DOB - which we are sure has been entered correctly. Is this an error you are getting? Anyone else getting this issue? Or have we just been really unlucky with these 2 registrations?
99% of the time HMRC have an old address tied to the NI number, the other 1% is people like my client the other week who unwittingly gave us the wrong NI number, he apparently didn't know his.
The client needs to fix it with the NI office.
Yes, exactly, do the form online entirely and submit via your agent account. You can do the CWF1 equivalent, SA1, and get authorisations on there once you get the details through. Despite having to do the registration and authorisation in separate sequential steps it is still a whole lot faster overall.
Generally within 2-3 weeks, sometimes sooner. The authorisation will take a further two weeks or so once you have the UTR.
HMRC now 'lose' all mail. I cant remember the last time I had a reply for something posted to them i.e.
Appeals against late filing penalties - lost
Claim for EIS Relief - two letters - lost
When you complete the SA1 if he already has a UTR then you will get an email to say so. We alway use our email address.
For some reason we can now only file a CWF1 online for clients with a UTR.
I have just checked and the ones we submitted yesterday now have the Class 2 showing.
Obviously we already had UTRs and were agent.
Your situation is now urgent for your subbie so call the SA helpline and get them to give you the UTR over the phone. Tell them about the 64-8. Call back til this works (well it worked for us once anyway!).
We posted a CWF1 & 64-8 in mid-June - it wouldn't work online for some reason, and I can't recall why just now. The HMRC letter telling us the UTR and that the client had been set up for self assessment arrived last week.
Recently for a new client that was already in SA but not registered for self employment, I gave up trying to register for self employment online and did a paper CWF1 instead. The client was already on my online client list.
Is it possible as an agent to register a client for self emp?
Yes but I don’t know how to do it as my assistant did it. But it worked in less than 24 hours.
Try this: https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/shortforms/form/CWF1ST?dept-name=CWF1&sub...
Apparently:
64-8 - an aim of 15 days
Requesting a UTR by post (not sure if that covers CWF1 but for the sake of argument let's assume so - processing from the beginning of Dec 21 & hoping for 15 days by the end of Feb 22
Requesting a UTR online - an aim of 15 days