Self employed Client has HMRC tax account. I logged in to his account and he has access to SA and VAT. I requested access to PAYE online - this is a HMRC requirement for the recovery of Furlough pay by the employer. HMRC said they would send an activation code etc. Two hours later I receive an Automated email from HMRC (Thought it might be a SCAM - but it wasn't) they are not going to send an activation code because they do not hold client's up to date address (it hasn't changed) or because the tax account had been closed (which it hadn't , since I've logged into it twice today). Now either the client or more likely me, have to telephone the PAYE helpline to sort this out - how many hours or days is that going to take ?
Has anyone else come across this problem ? The cynic in me suspects that it is a FRAUD by HMRC to avoid the payment of this furlough pay because my client is in dispute with them regarding alleged PAYE arrears. ( Amount <£1k )
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You were breaking all the rules by logging in to somebody else’s account and wonder why HMRC are suspicious? You’ve presumably triggered their fraud prevention gateway.
Well here is your first error
" I set up the account for the client, using my email address as the contact for the account"
Its not your account. Its the clients. Its a pretty basic distinction. If you have a professional supervisory body, you might want a little chat with their ethics support about what you can and cant do as you seemed to have forgotten a key part of your professional training.
There are several declarations made in the process of setting up and using the account which you have fraudulently agreed to.
I, on occasion, will use a client's HMRC online account where there is no other option. I have never done so without the client there with me at the time and were I to do it now, would do it via remote desktop with the client watching and confirming the necessary.
You are committing identity fraud by falsely declaring to HMRC that you are the client.
Anyway, the answer to your question, ignoring the ranty bits, is that HMRC have at some point sent your client a letter which has been returned to them, or ignored, and as a result have flagged the address as possibly incorrect. If you are registered as their agent (I'm not sure if you are since you seem happy to pretend to be them instead) you can call on their behalf, or I suppose you could call anyway and put on a funny voice, and tell them the address is correct.
Just do it from a phone with loudspeaker and get on with something else while on hold, it's not so onerous and they can fix the issue there and then.