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Log in, you hope

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2nd Aug 2017
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Are you listening, HMRC? Here we have a tale of woe.

I set out to pay my tax online this morning. Always been a doddle, but need to check in case HMRC are using a different account number this time. So I go to log in. It’s me, not my clients, so I use my personal code. And since it’s personal, they ring me with a six-figure entry code.

Gabbled like something out of Poldark but in a slightly mid-Atlantic voice. No introduction, no “here’s your code”, just immediately a rather indistinct six figure number. I listened to it twice, entered it. Or possibly not, since it didn’t like the number I’d entered even when I’d listened again and entered it again.

So I thought, I’ll go away and try again. So I did, entered my personal username and password and pressed go. No good, it had decided to alter my username to my business one and so it didn’t fit the password. It did that twice, so I went to online help. Nobody was available so I (foolishly) tried the automated system. I couldn’t make it understand my problem.

Just another computer foul-up, perhaps. But here I was trying to pay my tax just a few days before the deadline. I found a way to do it anyway. But suppose I was trying this for the first time. The chance of somebody slightly hard of hearing picking up the rattled off code – without a second chance if they’ve picked the call up live – must be very small.

So I think I’ve paid and I hope it’s gone into the right account. And I’m supposed to be an expert. And Making Tax Digital? In your dreams, HMRC.

Replies (2)

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By k.bonney2
03rd Aug 2017 12:35

The lights are on but there is nobody in.

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By Charlie Carne
11th Aug 2017 11:40

I sympathise and I agree that HMRC are making it very difficult for agents to access HMRC client data these days. But one piece of advice that I would give anyone else reading this post is to use a mobile number as your two-step verification (2SV) tool, as you then get a text message which is easy to read and cannot be mis-heard.

In general, I have no problem with the idea that HMRC want increased levels of security. My only problem with this is that, by forcing clients to use 2SV, we cannot log into their dashboard, which contains far more information than our agent dashboard contains about our clients.

As part of MTD, HMRC are opening up the API's so that third-party software will be able to access everything that our clients' own dashboards present (which will be great!) but, until that happens, we can only see key client data via the client dashboard. So HMRC recognise the limitations of the agents' dashboard and are working to resolve that problem via use of API's but, BEFORE that resolution goes live, HMRC close down the work-around of agents logging into clients' dashboards, despite having recognised for years that this is the only practical way for an agent to obtain critical client information. Why do HMRC believe that this is the correct order in which to implement their new policies?

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