Who's to Blame ?

Who's to Blame ?

Didn't find your answer?

Well, apparently, it's Theresa Middleton, Director of the Making Tax Digital for Business Programme.

Here's what she says .....

Replies (24)

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RLI
By lionofludesch
16th Apr 2016 15:01

Four Returns

"There have been suggestions that businesses and the self employed will need to submit four returns every year.  This is not the case.  Instead of sending in one large, onerous return every year, once a quarter businesses can check the information they are recording digitally is correct and press 'send' to update HMRC."

If you have a number of different sources of income to enter on your return - true - it won't be like four returns.

Of course, if, like most of my clients, your large return only contains self employed income, four returns is exactly what it's like.

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Replying to Duggimon:
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By Wanderer
16th Apr 2016 15:09

RTI revisited?

Theresa Middleton wrote:
"There have been suggestions that businesses and the self employed will need to submit four returns every year.  This is not the case.  Instead of sending in one large, onerous return every year, once a quarter businesses can check the information they are recording digitally is correct and press 'send' to update HMRC."

Instead of sending in one large, onerous P35 once a year in a time window that lets you plan it to fit in with your business you now have the easier option of sending in 12 / 13 / 52 / 64 / potentially 365 returns with strict deadlines & big fines if you don't.  

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By ShirleyM
16th Apr 2016 15:05

Typical government 'speak'

The 'spin' is out of control. One day they will speak the truth .... and nobody will believe them because we are so used to getting no truth, half a truth, or an outright lie.

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RLI
By lionofludesch
17th Apr 2016 16:33

Income and Outgoings

"These quarterly updates will be a summary of incomings and outgoings and are not equivalent to completing a full tax return every quarter."

This implies "three line accounts", which is, indeed, not particularly onerous.  However, I've heard it said that HMRC will be looking for something more akin to the full self employment pages.

So the small trader moves from three line accounts once a year to full accounts four times a year.    And that's less onerous, apparently.

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RLI
By lionofludesch
16th Apr 2016 15:17

Waiting

"Many businesses and self employed people have told us that they should not have to wait until the end of the year, or even longer, before knowing their tax bill."

This is quite startling.  No one has ever said this to me.   Who are these people ?

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Replying to SXGuy:
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By jjswjjsw
17th Apr 2016 10:26

What questions were asked?

lionofludesch wrote:

"Many businesses and self employed people have told us that they should not have to wait until the end of the year, or even longer, before knowing their tax bill."

This is quite startling.  No one has ever said this to me.   Who are these people ?

I'm guessing the question they were asked was weighted to produce the result e.g. Would you like to know your tax liability earlier to avoid making an overpayment and waiting several years for us to repay that money to you?

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RLI
By lionofludesch
16th Apr 2016 15:22

Cash basis

"For the self employed who are using the cash basis, our aim is that these updates will be sufficient, in their own right, to arrive at a figure of taxable profit and amount of tax that would be owed at the year end."

So four returns it is, then, despite what she said earlier.

And for those sticking with the accruals basis, they'll need a fifth return with those pesky adjustments for debtors and creditors, won't they ?

 

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By cparker87
16th Apr 2016 15:45

POA
Maybe they should have just changed to 12x POAs. Cant help but think that would much simpler for a similar result

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Replying to colinhigginson:
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By cstwragby
16th Apr 2016 16:10

Never do it simply

cparker87 wrote:
Maybe they should have just changed to 12x POAs. Cant help but think that would much simpler for a similar result

Good God man, The Government do something simple? Next you'll be suggesting they could have increased NI to give people a higher State Pension instead of introducing Workplace Pensions.....

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By levelheaded1903
17th Apr 2016 08:47

Indeed it will be much more
Onerous, as the information included within the four returns will be transactional. This will mean those clients who keep,paper records for the year then pass to their accountants, or keep spreadsheets will no longer be able to do so. I had hoped that the system would allow a summary of information but this is not how the system is due to work. To supply transactional information clients will need some sort of cloud based software to capture this data or alternatively have their accountant doing the same. As a very small practice with virtually all my clients being at the small end, and due to start 2017/2018 it fills me with horror to be frank!

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By SE_Confused
17th Apr 2016 10:38

so, will they still need a final year tax return or a set of accounts?

does this include limited companies?

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Replying to legerman:
RLI
By lionofludesch
17th Apr 2016 10:43

Yes

neutru wrote:

does this include limited companies?

From 2020, yes.

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By MM Bookkeeping Services
17th Apr 2016 10:56

Data Protection?

Speaking from a personal point of view with regard to my SATR:

I am totally against uploading any transactional data to HMRC.

I do not wish to share my account details with anyone e.g. mobile phone, landline phone, supplier accounts etc

This aside, none of my clients prepare their accounts - that is why they engage me - as the majority of them don't use a PC never mind a smartphone!

This MTD has not been thought out properly and will just create major problems for the small business and small landlords.

 

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RLI
By lionofludesch
17th Apr 2016 10:58

Hacked off

Well, the more stuff on the internet, the more chance you have of being hacked.

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Replying to sanjay100:
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By MM Bookkeeping Services
17th Apr 2016 11:43

Precisely

lionofludesch wrote:

Well, the more stuff on the internet, the more chance you have of being hacked.

Which is why up to now I have refused to move over to cloud accounts software.

However, looks like I will have to eventually.

I'm 'hacked off' as it is with all this MTD so to have my PC hacked would be the final nail in the coffin!

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By David_F
17th Apr 2016 12:58

Who is to blame ?

WE ARE. 

We allow HMRC to get away with these daft proposals time after time, meekly complying with their outrageous impositions on ordinary people simply trying to earn a decent living. 

We should be protesting, lobbying MP's, and refusing to cooperate with HMRC. 

So, if you want to see who is to blame - look in the mirror. 

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By Ruddles
17th Apr 2016 18:53

Speak for yourself

Goodbye

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Replying to gainsborough:
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By David_F
17th Apr 2016 19:26

Are you leaving Ruddles?

Ruddles wrote:

Speak for yourself

Goodbye

 

I have made 5 comments since joining this site, and immediately after 4 of them identical posts to the above have been posted by "Ruddles".  I assumed this to be a site for professionals to exchange views and information. Perhaps someone should tell Ruddles where the kindergarten section is. 

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By Ruddles
17th Apr 2016 19:35

Aw, shucks

I must have missed one.

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Jennifer Adams
By Jennifer Adams
19th Apr 2016 18:37

What are the various institutes doing about it?

We've heard hardly anything from them.

There is not much time to put procedures into place.

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By levelheaded1903
20th Apr 2016 09:50

@JAAdams

It think the various institutes will rely on accountants in practice to sort the processes and procedures out for this, expect many "invites" for working together groups over the next couple of years, we will be doing the wok!

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RLI
By lionofludesch
20th Apr 2016 11:53

Fools or liars ?

I can't decide whether HMRC genuinely believe this will work or whether they know it won't and are just lying about it.

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By Exector
20th Apr 2016 14:27

Shouting from the sidelines?

JAADAMS has posted recently on (yet) another Aweb MTD thread commenting on possible HMRC staff attitudes and those of software houses involved in the project. It seems likely the PBI in HMRC are not very sold on the project and the message from the software house quote and general impression is that most of the conversation on this so far has been within the new technology industry and the Government/Treasury/ specialist HMRC appointees. Naturally the conversation goes something like: "Gov: can you jump if we/others reward you? New techies: Yes of course, how high?"

Can't really blame the commercial organisations for general assent attitude, it's their raison d'etre after all and at a push can even see how the promoters on the other side being true believers in the scheme can't be expected to raise possible dissenting voices, but what can be objected to is the effective disenfranchisement at this most important early phase of effective input by the planned operators and users of the scheme ie HMRC staff, taxpayers (customers!) and their agents. Why are we not in at the heart of devising workable solutions, rather than simply being fed proposals and outcomes?

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RLI
By lionofludesch
20th Apr 2016 12:29

Low morale

I have to say that on the rare occasions that I speak to HMRC staff, their morale seems very low.

I was speaking to a lass about some imaginary PAYE she was demanding and she came out with "yes, it's usually us that's wrong".

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