I have come to submit a tax return for a client using a third party software and was unable to as they said I was not authorised. I logged in to my government gateway to find out that my self assessment and corporation tax had been removed. When contacting HMRC they stated that the agent maintainer department had suspended my account. I have been trading under the same name in the same place for over 30 years so am a loss as to why they have done this now. I have spoken to several departments at HMRC and none of them are able to contact agent maintainer. Has anyone experienced this and know how to resolve it? I have read that they will send a letter to all clients advising that we have ceased trading which is going to cause a huge disruption and inevitable loss of business. After this year I'm not sure how much more my business can take. Any advice urgently would be greatly appreciated.
Replies (19)
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It happened to us a couple of months ago. Received the letter which was a complete nonsense within about a week, answered immediately and got resolved within about 3 weeks.
Not much help i'm afraid but I did get an apology.
The problem was someone at HMRC searching HMRC's AML supervised list and we weren't on it so it got suspended. When they searched our institute's scheme it got reinstated within a few days and everything was back to normal.
It's all a bit ridiculous they don't seem to have a phone number or email address to resolve simple errors (on their part)
I think it's AML linked - a lot of renewals are coming up following the 6 month grace period.
I had this issue with SA service being suspended back in April 2018. My AML address as per HMRC database was not the same as actual trading address. Off course they claimed that they have sent letters in regards to this which we never received (surprise surprise). The whole matter took around 3 weeks to resolve in my busiest time of the year (April/May).
I`d advise to be on their backs for this - call, complain etc. It is a massive pain in the backside.
Our clients weren't contacted. It was just an awkward few weeks not being able to file things or check things
I complained to Agent helpline, ADR Team and also to Agent Maintainer Team. I will have a look through the old emails to see if can find any contact with them.
IT HAPPENED TO US, in late March and I was not happy. I kept getting fobbed off, and it was extremely stressful. I was promised call backs that never happened and kept being told to go to different departments and was going around in circles.
One evening (after three days without SA), around midnight decided to go on the attack and went hunting online for email addresses and copied and pasted the same email, that was very aggressive and firm to the point to senior people in HMRC. Make sure you have read receipt on your email.
They said it was AML issue. I said it would nice if they told me. They said they sent me a letter 5 months earlier that I never replied to - because I did not receive it.
They said they had me another letter that arrived 7 days after the matter was resolved. They told me about the letter and was told it was very important issue, so asked why sent it second class?
I was not happy!
TBF in the end HMRC sorted it quickly and efficiently then paid me £25 compensation.
You won’t get anywhere though by being nice to them.
PM if it helps.
Andrew
Yes due to AML what an absolute ball ache it was took months and months and almost cost me everything.
The only thing I could do was write to them, they wouldnt accept calls, emails etc. So get a letter typed up and in the post along with your AML proof asap.
The bad news for me was they lost/ignored some letters and took ages to respond. Hopefully it wont be the same for you.
We have experienced the same problem just recently. It has taken 3 weeks to sort out. It is impossible to speak to anyone at HMRC, all dealings must be done by post by writing to the Agent Maintainer Team. We understand that it is either connected to our office move or to the AML supervision. Either way HMRC had been properly notified. It has caused a major disruption and I have lodged a complain with HMRC.
I did get it sorted. Following my resignation as a Director (I am 67) I was asked by the AAT to register with HMRC which we did and approval was granted by HMRC back in September. However, HMRC also wrote to us in August but I did not receive this letter. Middle of November this year they decided to discontinue the codes on the basis we did not reply to their letter. Had they checked our AML Gateway, they would have seen we were covered by HMRC. To avoid further problems, I re-appointed myself as a Director and the AAT sent immediately an email to the Agent Maintainer Team on the same day to explain we were covered by both AAT and HMRC. Someone at HMRC is particularly active without checking online records. I wrote a letter of complaint to the Area Director but no reply yet. I have also sought legal advice. I am concerned that out of 300 SA clients, at the moment we can only see details for 3 SA clients. Unless all clients' details are restored we will find it difficult to provide a good service. We can of course now file both SA tax returns and Limited Companies tax returns, but I am hoping that gradually our full list of clients will be restored on our online gateway. It was very stressful, but we have kept going and I have explained the problem open to one client at least.
And I would send a copy of your story to Jesse Norman, MP, who is the Treasury Minister responsible for HMRC and to your MP. The more often MPs hear about these issues, the greater the chance of change.