I had a problem with one of my clients who had lost payroll paperwork, yes, one of those who is always losing paperwork, excacerbated by the fact that they've just moved house.
As the authorised agent on this client's account, I rang HMRC to obtain details of the missing information, but they would only send it to the client. Why is this? What's the point of being their Agent if HMRC won't let you have the details?
Their letter to my client says: "I am writing about your agent's phone call of 25 January 2019, asking for your employment history. We've changed the way we supply customer's confidential information. We no longer give details of pay and tax or employment history directly to your agent or authorised third party."
So what do HMRC think being an 'agent' actually means and why are they being so unhelpful?
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Replies (15)
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Too many agents are obstructive, too many agents are the cause of tax underpayments, too many agents are dishonest. Need I go on?
That's a really disappointing view andy.partridge and I'm a bit surprised by it - maybe I'm naïve! I wasn't being obstructive or dishonest, I was just trying to prepare an accurate self assessment tax return for a client and needed information. If we are appointed as agents that should be respected by HMRC, we have been authorised by the client, so why are they still not respecting the authorisation we've been given?
Are you taking my post personally? It was only a general answer to a general question.
I expect many of us have anecdotes of being sidelined by HMRC while doing our job. I know I have.
This policy is not evenly activated. I asked for and received a client's tax returns for the last 4 years
The classic is when HMRC make up their own PAYE figures that don't match the RTI submissions. You then need to submit an EYU to correct the figures but to do that you need to submit the difference between what HMRC hold and what is correct. The catch - HMRC won't tell you what figures they have for each employee.
this is one of those matters where, again, there has been little or no support from the professional organisations.
The point is does a form 64-8 stand as a specific power of attorney?
If it does, then it counts as a court document so HMRC may be penalised for not following the instruction.
If it is counted just as a polite request, then HMRC may do as they wish.
Taken from the horses mouth (so to speak);
https://www.gov.uk/appoint-tax-agent
"Appoint someone to deal with HMRC on your behalf
You can authorise someone else to deal with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for you, for example an accountant, friend or relative.
If you have to fill in a Self Assessment tax return, HMRC will send all correspondence to the person you’ve authorised - except tax bills or refunds. Otherwise, HMRC will continue to write to you"
To ignore their own "guidelines" is surely a dangerous practice? When acting for someone, with severe memory loss issues etc, what is the point of writing to the individual, rather than the authorised agent?
Interesting Chris.
Some time ago when I was employed as the Company Accountant i.e. in-house and a bone fide employee on the RTI payroll; I requested information from HMRC on behalf my corporate employer ; in order to carry out some HMRC account paye/ni reconciliations.
The officer who replied, refused the request and insisted on having a 64-8 as they wanted to identify the person who had the company's authority to deal with HMRC! In the meantime they would supply the information directly to 'the director' (although there were 2 directors).
I queried this as I expected the 64-8 to be only relevant to external Agents. I asked the officer "why therefore cannot they supply the full name etc. of THE designated person who HMRC have authorised to deal with the company; as the director(s) and correctly authorised staff, may equally, not be prepared to deal with just anyone at HMRC!
The company had still not received a reply at the date of my leaving (@ 18 months ago).
My understanding is the rebate factories were requesting masses of information, and many advisors were phoning asking for P60 info rather than bothering to even ask the client - clogging up the agent helpline. Plus, the client can get all this data from their personal tax account so why haven't they/why haven't we asked them to.
Not saying I agree with all of the above (some of it is a fair point) but that is what I understand the rationale to be.
It's not exactly new or surprising though - it's been that way for a year or two.
If I asked my clients to get their P60 details from their personal tax account, 90% of them (I'm being conservative here) would say, "My what ???"
Here's a thought - why don't HMRC give agents access to this information ? It'd save all those irritating phone calls to the four folk in the call centre in Mel Stride's spare bedroom.
Hence why I stated I don't necessarily agree with it, but that remains (I believe) one of their reasons - i.e. if the taxpayer could be bothered to spend ten minutes getting the information themselves, then HMRC wouldn't have to go wiping the client's [***] for them.
To be fair, in relation to your second thought, they do give us the information. Admittedly it didn't start working until around December and even now it comes up with a blank for many (and Digita continue to suppress the pension figures) but a SAGE rep came on here over a year ago and linked their Personal Tax Account viewer which enables you to look up anyone on your HMRC online client list.
