PENALTY REGIME 12 months moratorium

Covid -19 overzealous HMRC HELP now please

Didn't find your answer?

I wonder if we should demand that HMRC announce this week that regulatory penalties are suspended  for the next 12 months

Yes 12 months.

Most practioners and firms are already working to capacity.

Surplus hours to catch -up on the inevitable t  Covid- 19 work backlogs simply do not exist.

Nor the time to reassure clients, that we may have a reasonable excuse, but that will cost client £150 for the letter !!!

Wave goodbye to client  with that .resposnse.

We are alll human, and we are all going to be touched by the challenges of Covid-19.

Computer  generated  penalty  notices  should be stopped.... if only to reduce stress 

How?

Easy

Switch- off the computer.

When?

Today

Jim Harra , please act now.

Thank you.

 

Replies (9)

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By Duggimon
17th Mar 2020 12:24

Are you ok?

I feel like if you're charging £150 for a letter appealing a penalty you're probably doing well enough to not worry about being at capacity.

Suspending all penalties for a year means everyone will stop filing whether they have to or not. Why wouldn't they?

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By adam.arca
17th Mar 2020 13:02

Leaving aside the £150 point (which does seem a bit odd), I actually think the OP makes a good point and was only thinking exactly the same this morning.

Let's say things do pretty much go t*ts up, then it's likely to be late summer before anything starts getting picked up again, meaning say Aug / Sept.

Let's also say that all work with year ends upto Feb 20 has somehow (miraculously) been completed by then, that still leaves all the March year ends and all the tax returns to be completed in approx. half the normal time. Now I know these tend to be backloaded for most of us anyway but that still sounds like one hell of a challenge.

Take me, I'm a micro practice and work at 95-100% capacity over 45 weeks a year so don't really have any room for excessive job clustering over and above what it already is. Now, obviously, I might have to take less time off in the later part of the year and I might have to work weekends but I can still see that being an almighty struggle (and that ignores all the year ends with later dates who like to get done early and all the other work we all do too).

This (potentially) is a once-in-a-lifetime event which can't be planned for.

It won't be the fault of our clients that they may have more important things to deal with than their books.

It won't be the fault of the accountancy profession that we won't have the capacity to get everything back on track by Jan 2021.

It will be the responsibility of HMG to make this an easy landing for everybody. They already know they're probably going to have to subsidise various industries such as airlines and hospitality, and it's going to be the responsibility of our leaders in the profession to make HMG aware of the penalties issue so that they can plan for that too.

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By legerman
17th Mar 2020 13:39

The crisis is likely to be vastly reduced by July (imo) but it may be prudent to cancel penalties and Co House in the meantime unless excessively late.

I find your argument weak though. Surely most businesses will have a lot more time on their hands, not less.

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Replying to legerman:
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By adam.arca
17th Mar 2020 16:29

I think you may be missing the point.

Clients may have more time on their hands because of coronavirus downtime although, personally, I think they're more likely (in extremis) to be spending that time running around trying to save their businesses than thinking about their accountants.

Some clients will indeed take the opportunity to get their books in early. Most, however, I suspect, won't think about the issue until they're back at work themselves. Even then they may be reluctant to get their books in too quickly because that will be another bill they have to pay.

The issue, therefore, is likely to be whether the profession has the capacity to deal with that much late working. All in a worst case scenario, of course, but in that scenario there is potentially the best part of a year's work to do in maybe as little as half that time, maybe a bit more, hopefully a lot more but nobody knows at this point. I would say that this scenario needs to be put to HMG by the profession now so that they can't say down the line they weren't warned. After all, we all know what a bunch of shifty bar-stewards the modern Revenue is.

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Replying to legerman:
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By justsotax
17th Mar 2020 16:44

I think most people are more worried about whether they will have a business at all after this.....and will be trying to ensure they do.....I don't think that involves updating their accounts - except maybe for checking whether they have enough cash to pay the rent etc

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By Paul D Utherone
17th Mar 2020 14:49

Quote:

I wonder if we should demand that HMRC announce this week that regulatory penalties are suspended  for the next 12 months

Yes 12 months.

Most practioners and firms are already working to capacity.

Surplus hours to catch -up on the inevitable t  Covid- 19 work backlogs simply do not exist.

Nor the time to reassure clients, that we may have a reasonable excuse, but that will cost client £150 for the letter !!!

Wave goodbye to client  with that .resposnse.

We are alll human, and we are all going to be touched by the challenges of Covid-19.

Computer  generated  penalty  notices  should be stopped.... if only to reduce stress 

How?

Easy

Switch- off the computer.

When?

Today

Jim Harra , please act now.

Thank you.

 

Why is this Anonymous? Doesn't seem to be any great need.

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Replying to Paul D Utherone:
boxfile
By spilly
17th Mar 2020 19:25

So the people in white coats can’t find them?

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By claudialowe
18th Mar 2020 09:30

I agree that most of our work will come much later in the year, and that we will be twiddling our thumbs for the next few months and then rushed off our feet from September/October onwards. Subbies will probably be an exception to that, and will be standing on the doorstep on 6th April. Jo/e Public will keep their heads down and try and avoid an accountants bill for as long as possible.

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Replying to claudialowe:
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By rockallj
19th Mar 2020 11:24

Quote:

I agree that most of our work will come much later in the year, and that we will be twiddling our thumbs for the next few months and then rushed off our feet from September/October onwards. Subbies will probably be an exception to that, and will be standing on the doorstep on 6th April. Jo/e Public will keep their heads down and try and avoid an accountants bill for as long as possible.

In our practice meeting this was exactly my concern. We will twiddle our thumbs for months, clients may feel that their tax obligations aren’t important in the scheme of things, whilst HMRC penalties roll in.

And then come August time as life starts to go back to some normality, the work will come in in droves and we won’t be able to cope.

My genuine concern is that it will be an uphill struggle to convince clients to give us more time to do their accounts so that they can plan the settlement of their tax liabilities better and over a longer period. Human nature being what it is, clients will leave it to the last minute. That certainly has been our experience this last January which is been our worse since the practice was formed.

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