HMRC moves first manual onto GOV.UK

HMRC has migrated its first technical tax manual to new government portal GOV.UK, VAT Government and Public Bodies.

The transition from HMRC's old website to GOV.UK was completed in December 2014. All content aside from the technical manuals and tax tables were transferred across by the GDS team with HMRC help, as they needed additional work.

This will be the same process for the remaining 200 tax manuals - about 80,000 pages - containing specialist tax guidance which will come onto GOV.UK in the next few weeks. This will be done when imports have been reviewed by HMRC tax experts.

Then, the new manuals will be published and the old versions redirected to the new ones.

The CIPP said that feedback is "critical to the long term success of GOV.UK." 

VAT Government and Public Bodies is the first manual pushed from the new HMRC publishing system through the API and published on GOV.UK.

The older version, available on the previous site, will be available for the next few weeks and HMRC is asking users to review and feedback on these via the feedback form on the page. 

The CIPP commented on the transition of the first manual. It said: "Although this manual is VAT and not PAYE related it is the first of many and it is critical to the long term success of GOV.UK that feedback is given. 

"It is particularly important at this stage to provide detailed comments about the manuals as the information you provide will be reviewed carefully and used to ensure the manuals are meeting the needs of users."

HMRC has developed a new publishing system which makes it easier to update and maintain the manual content. The GDS has created a new design for the manuals to sit on GOV.UK, to make them more user-friendly and bring them in line with its design principles.

There is a newly developed ‘write API’ that allows HMRC to publish/update the manuals on the new site, which thje GDS will build on in the coming months.

The manual format the GDS is developing will run across all governmental departments. It will also begin to look into additional features, such as search within a manual and printing and downloading them.