Trust registration and the agent services account

Trust registration and the agent services account - has any firm created their ASA yet?

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Good afternoon all,

Has any firm created their ASA yet and would you be willing to share details of your experience, please?

My firm - approximately 13 partners and 100 staff - is struggling as to how we show go about this in terms of traps and pitfalls to be wary of, particularly given the time of year [we'd hate for our mainstream agent account to be fettered by the creation of our ASA] and the repeated mention of two factor authentication [as to which, how can this be managed with more than 113 people in the firm].

As I understand it, when we create our ASA it will not immediately interact with our other agent services [payroll, itsa, ctsa, VAT etc.] so I think we should be safe to create our ASA without fear of hindering the other tax compliance work going on at present, however, if anyone has any other experiences I'd love to know.

Similarly, I am getting mixed reports regarding the two step authentication; is this actually required to set up the ASA initally and/or access the trust register?

With thanks in anticipation!!

Replies (18)

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By Wanderer
21st Nov 2017 17:14

AnthonyDavidMain wrote:
.... particularly given the time of year [we'd hate for our mainstream agent account to be fettered by the creation of our ASA]....
This is our biggest fear.

HMRC's record of a) creating & b) not sorting out, problems with the possibility of losing access to our present agent accounts is frightening.

Thanks (4)
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By SpreadsheetUser
21st Nov 2017 19:09

I signed up yesterday. I have three Gateway ID logins but was only able to bring across one. Waiting a callback about the two others.
From dealing with an email contact I have in HMRC in this department, it doesn't actually bring anything across at this stage unless you're dealing with Trusts. And I can vouch for this as if I log in I have no services enabled
The screen after log-in resembles the "old" agent account you currently have, but as I say, as Self Assessment, VAT etc. etc. aren't live under MTD, they don't show in your new agent account

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By bazzamail
27th Nov 2017 10:39

We have registered our ASA and started the trust and complex estate registration process. This did not require the two-step verification process that is being proposed for MTD.

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By Andrew Lee
27th Nov 2017 10:40

I recently completed the process on behalf of my own firm in order to be able to register a new trust, but I must confess I found the process confusing. The first registration screen requires your personal details and not those of the firm and you eventually receive an Agent Services Account number, another Gateway Agent ID number and a personal (?) User ID, but there is no explanation of the registration structure and I'm still not sure if I have dealt with the registration correctly, although speaking to other accountants, they also believe the registration deals with you at individual level and not at firm level, so will all users have to register?

With some trepidation, I also accepted the migration of our existing Gateway account services and it said this was done successfully. However, nothing has changed at our end and we still log in via the old Gateway for all services accept trusts.

If you don't need to register a trust, you may prefer to wait until things become clearer, as this is only a Beta service at present and has only been made available to meet the trust registration deadlines, although I'm still not clear if we also have to register all existing trusts, including or excluding ones that are not actually submitting Returns by 31 January 2018?

The new trust registration process is also horrendous and requires an awful lot of information and takes one hour plus to complete!

Thanks (4)
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By Swimmingagainstthe Tide
27th Nov 2017 10:55

My experience was similar to others. The process is completely baffling. I think I have managed to set up an ASA but as it has no services accessible I am uncertain. I am wary of transfering in services from the other 'accounts' that we have in case it affects staff access to those areas.

I followed the instructions and have some sort of result but I had no idea what I was doing!!

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By Homeworker
27th Nov 2017 11:23

What a mess. I had hoped to wait until February before trying to set up our ASA but have two existing Trusts to set up on the TRS by the end of January. Am putting this off in the hope that the representations by our professional bodies will allow a further extension of that deadline.

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By Tomazaan
27th Nov 2017 14:27

I have created an Agent Services account (well, I think I have and like the others I found it very confusing). I was not given an option to migrate my existing Government Gateway account (and am now worrying because this seems different to others).
I registered my first trust on Friday and it took me about half an hour. The same person is the settlor, beneficiary and is one of the trustees and I had to enter his details three times. The system did not like the fact that he was the single income beneficiary and so I entered details of the two remaindermen and said that they were entitled to 0% of the income.
I understand that if you make a mistake, you cannot correct it until that functionality is added to the system and that won't happen until next year.

Thanks (2)
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By jonibarnes
05th Dec 2017 19:19

This is on the to do list, I have been putting it off in the hope that the January 31 deadline is extended. Reading this thread hasn't exactly inspired me to press on ahead of that date. Anyone know what penalties are in place for late registration of existing trusts?

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Replying to jonibarnes:
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By DonDan
06th Dec 2017 10:11

I had a conversation with the Trust office a few weeks ago and the person i spoke to said they had not been told if there would be penalties in place for the Jan 2018 deadline.

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Replying to DonDan:
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By jonibarnes
07th Dec 2017 13:42

HMRC useful as ever!

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By yeboyye
06th Dec 2017 17:51

Yes, this is very confusing. I managed, with difficulty and much non-chargeable time, to register a complex estate. My new User ID and new password get me logged in but, like someone else mentioned, I have a Gateway Agent ID that appears to be of no use. Another headache all round I'm afraid.

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By bennett2001
07th Dec 2017 17:42

We have already set our ASA and have started entering trust details. A key point that we noted fairly early on in the process is that the login to get to the correct web page to start registering the trust details appears to be different to your 'nomal' agent services one. We use this one and it appears to work fine:

https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/gg/sign-in?continue=/trusts-forms/form/re...

However, if we use our 'normal' HMRC gateway webpage, as noted below, the usual HMRC agent services screen appears but with no services we can use enabled so we could not get to the trust setup screen.

https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/gg/sign-in?continue=/account

Just to confuse matters further, the login screen presentation of both these two links are identical so it's all too easy to accidently log into the wrong one. Hope this assists other confused users.

Thanks (1)
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By pdelf
10th Dec 2017 13:54

https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/trusts-forms/form/registration-of-a-trust...

service not available over this weekend
Hope it is working tomorrow.

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Replying to pdelf:
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By jonibarnes
10th Dec 2017 21:33

Excellent!

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By jonibarnes
11th Dec 2017 07:25

Registration deadline for existing trusts extended to 5 march 2018 - info from tolleys daily roundup email

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By Jan CM
11th Dec 2017 09:28

I am very confused with this. I started to attempt to set up a new ASA on Friday, and it all seems very similar to my current agent account, which I wasn't expecting. I didn't get the opportunity to migrate any account over, and there don't appear to be an services available to me - do I need to register separately?

When I've tried to register a client for the TRS, it just takes me to a 'Service unavailable' screen, which is really unhelpful given the imposing deadline, and we've also got a busy month ahead.... plus I know it's going to take some time to get the trust registered!

Any guidance would be much appreciated!

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By Ronnie Stanley
02nd Mar 2018 17:28

I've managed to successfully three trusts today to meet the 5 March deadline, hooray!
But for the life of me can't find a way to log in again to actually view these trusts on the 'Trust Register'.
So I now have a second agent home page with no clients listed and no sign anywhere of these trusts.

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Replying to Ronnie Stanley:
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By Wanderer
02nd Mar 2018 17:37

Fairly sure that's a 'feature' of the Trust Registration Service! i.e. once complete you have no way of accessing / correcting / updating the information nor even a dashboard type arrangement showing those that you have done.

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