ICAS urges HMRC to suspend SA late filing penalties
HMRC should automatically waive late self assessment filing penalties up to three-months as some firms are significantly behind on their tax return progress due to the impact of coronavirus, according to ICAS.
You might also be interested in
Replies (27)
Please login or register to join the discussion.
If they do suspend the late filing penalties, or extend the deadline then they need to announce it at the very last minute otherwise clients will simply sit back and take advantage of the new deadline, by which time it will be 5 April when we will be busy again. We have seen exactly this with the 3 month extension to the Companies House deadline.
I disagree, Jon. I don't want to work myself into the ground (again) trying to meet 31st January deadlines, only to find out at the last minute that it wasn't necessary. I'm not sure how aware clients would be of an extension anyway.
I haven't told any of my clients about the Companies House deadline extension nor would I tell them if HMRC extended the SA deadline.
I only tell the clients when there is no chance of making the deadline - and i have even withheld this from a couple of the juniors - keep the hammer down.
Completely agree. What I need is a reduction I n my stress levels now- not working myself into the ground for the next 2 months to get an eleventh hour extension.
Completely agree Jon.
Personally I don't agree with any extension as we should all have our house in order anyway!
I think that the deadline should stay at 31 Jan and that penalties should be suspended.
But, I don't think Joe Public should be told.
That way, they (technically) will bring information in as normal and we can "do our best" to get it done on time and/or "sort the penalties out for you"
Or perhaps, penalties only suspended for returns submitted by an agent - but again, not made public.
My MP sent me this email last week:
"Thank you very much for your recent email with regard to whether the current deadline for self assessment submissions can be relaxed and extended due to a heavy covid workload.
I am pleased to confirm that I have written to the Chief Executive of HMRC to make this request.
I will write again, when I have received the response."
That is better than a reply I had from my MP. A 2 page generic letter telling us how much help the government has given businesses during the pandemic.
Nowhere did he address my question so big up your MP for reading your email and acting upon it.
What [***] me off the most is the 14 day deadline for filing CJRS claims for November. The pressure it's putting us under plus dealing with our normal work in a short month is enourmous.
Totally agree. The pressure on payroll bureaus at the mo is incredible. Additional time to work out the pay and now have to get the claim within 14 days. Have already had clients adding to the stress which does not help.
You just feel like Christmas is cancelled at the moment, Oh and when clients go, oh well, at least you've got work. We get no help from central government, nothing, They just don't care.
As Companies House have increased the deadline then surely HMRC should do the same. Then again one Government department won't necessarily agree with another. Still we've now got devolution as well as covid and Brexit to blame.
Suspension of penalties would be best - keep the pressure on the tax payers. Perhaps someone might like to mention the amount of additional time being spent waiting for HMRC to pick up the phone and using covid as the excuse.
It took me an hour and ten minutes on the phone to HMRC today - with three separate operatives via three separate phone calls that they transferred - to get a CIS/PAYE allocation sorted out and apparently it won't show up online until at least 1 February 2021!
It's a one-sided shambles!!
And of course you will need to do it all again on 2/2/2021 when it does not show. Waited 5 hrs for a web chat last week ( because we were trying to get something to print off to prove to the client it was not our fault they had not got an SMP reclaim)
I am amazed at those who think that extending the deadline or suspending penalties is not necessary and am astonished at the arrogance of the person who says we should all have our house in order as if there is no pandemic. I have had my house in order for 33 years yet have never faced a position where team members are off work self-isolating, off work having caught the virus, too damn frightened to attend work or visit clients, two senior members gone to work in industry on 1 April and not being able to find replacements in a market that disappeared overnight on the first lockdown. I have never been in a position where I have had to divert into our payroll bureau team members who usually prepare Accounts and Tax Returns or a payroll manager regularly working 50+ hours a week to cope with furlough claims. I have never had to deal with the volume of clients in distress and wanting help. Then there are the clients who have lost their businesses or passed away, two in the last week.
I so wish my house was still in order!
Oh boy do I sympathise. I think the was this year has affected us depends very much on the nature of our individual portfolios and also of course the staffing issues. My practice is not as established as yours so it is actually, for me personally, re-assuring to know it is not just me that has been finding this almost
impossible to juggle, physically exhausting and mentally draining. I wish you all the best for the next 2 months. I have been in practice for 30 years albeit my own boss for less and I have never had a year like this.
Oh boy do I sympathise. I think the was this year has affected us depends very much on the nature of our individual portfolios and also of course the staffing issues. My practice is not as established as yours so it is actually, for me personally, re-assuring to know it is not just me that has been finding this almost
impossible to juggle, physically exhausting and mentally draining. I wish you all the best for the next 2 months. I have been in practice for 30 years albeit my own boss for less and I have never had a year like this.
Our house looks like a bomb has hit it. Who can plan for a pandemic?
Oh and I see HMRC arseholes have still not extended the deadline for claims from 14 days. WTF are they thinking.
I think suspension of penalties until at least 5th April 2021 is the best way to deal with this.
I also think the Government should seriously review their Making Tax Digital plans and immediately pause all future developments indefinitely. It would seem to be a somewhat perverse policy to try and press ahead with this whilst hundreds of thousands of businesses are dealing with very serious situations and the last thing they will be interested in is this fanciful project. The Government need to be pragmatic here and accept that it is just not going to happen at the moment, however much they want it to.
We already have perfectly good tax management systems which work very well (and are being improved each year little by little anyway), so there is absolutely no need to push ahead with the MTD project at the moment (and hopefully never).
When you stop to think about it HMRC need the Revenue from the fines.
The government said they wouldn't raise taxes so they grabbed at the GDPR fines and haven't they been large beyond reason?
Now they aren't going to send paper reminders for confirmation statements so that will end up as for fines along the line.
They don't bother to send out CT reminders to pay so people forget - more interest to collect.
The whole emphasis is changing to stealth taxes - HMG gets the money but it isn't HMG's fault its the taxpayer.
Highly dishonest in my view but reluctantly we cannot really expect any better from the politicians and taxmen of today.
If you compare HMRC's service now to what it was 20 years ago there just is no comparison then it was pretty good but now it is a shambles and with few staff who can actually answer questions. Not their fault I guess but lack of training and direction by those put 'in charge' of HMRC.
I expect that Rishi will tax the dead a bit more - after all they can't complain.
What sort of idiot talks about taxing people's mileage and putting in lots of cameras etc at great cost when the same result could be obtained by increasing the tax on petrol? It comes down to being con-men and being dishonest with voters to try to gain their support.
As for accountants - well they see us as targets because we try to get the right result whereas their computersised sytmes get them more tax which with a bit of luck they can keep.
A cynic? Me? Just a long time in this profession seeing the 'service' by HMRC go completely down the tubes with the rest of the Civil services arm in arm with them. FCA for a start ICO follows on - all a load of jobsworths making life difficult for other people but collecting huge fines on the way. I bet they even get bonuses for doing it.
"As for accountants - well they see us as targets because we try to get the right result whereas their computersised sytmes get them more tax which with a bit of luck they can keep."
Perhaps we are just too obliging and need to be a bit more uncooperative with HMRC. It is natural for us to try and do the right thing and go out of our way to achieve this for our clients and ourselves, but it does require the Government to give us tasks that are achievable. With some 20,000 pages in the tax code to abide by and numerous new emergency laws, the will to co-operate is disappearing fast and a more uncooperative approach may become a necessity rather than a choice in the future.
Whilst Accountants are no more important than anyone else, the Government would miss our help if it was no longer there.
Given that Covid is an excuse for HMRC to be tardy, the least they can do is cut us a little bit of slack. We're trying to run our own businesses and help our clients to run theirs. I agree that waiving penalties is a better option than extending the deadline - after all, they do need the tax revenues from those who are able to get them in and paid.