'HMRC had initially indicated that an FBI-2 alone was sufficient for clients to appear on the list but this now does not appear to be the case. Also, a form 64–8 on its own is not enough to allow online access'.
This has always frustrated me. A 64-8 should be all that is needed in my opinon.
A personal view but I have never understood what purpose FRS105 is meant to serve. It delivers financial statements of an inferior standard (the "P&L" is frankly a joke), yet requires (generally speaking) the same amount of effort and expertise to put together as a set of FRS102 accounts. Yes the level of disclosure appearing on the public record is somewhat reduced, but for most clients using 105 I doubt that is much of a consideration. 105 was the product of politicians wanting to be seen to be 'helping' small business, but what it really does is debase our profession.
I agree with this. The FRS105 accounts are terrible.
Although a lot of clients probably don't care as they just want the accounts filed and tax figure.
Before I ring HMRC and spend hours on the phone trying to get through can anyone else confirm Tornado and Sam's comment that clients will have to wait until Oct to get their refund?
I have two clients texting every day asking for the whereabouts of their CIS refunds and they are getting pretty desperate especially as 'all their mates' received their refunds within days of submission in April.
Mine were submitted 1st week May.
Also... one CIS client has admitted that he innocently declared the wrong amount. Do I submit an amended return with the correct amount which will mean client going to the end of the list for refunds or do I wait and let HMRC send an amended calculation?
I was also told October by HMRC when I rang for an update.
Certain jobs should have it as an absolute minimum to continue in their jobs, and that is those in the care industry. I fully expect insurance companies to insist on this in future or deny cover- as there is a clear case for lawyers to persue should a resident become infected and staff have refused to be vaccinated.
As for the general population, it's not YOU that you get the vaccine for, it's your fellow humans. If you don't give a ^&%& about others and only think of yourself, then you won't get it. If you consider it part of your duty to others, then you will have had it (medical exemptions excepted).
Those saying it's none of their business if their staff have been vaccinated or not are burying their heads in the sand: you are leaving yourself open to a pretty huge claim not covered by your insurance if one of your staff gets infected by another or one of your staff spreads covid during their work hours.
Of course the woke amongst us will say it's all about personal choice and ignore the fact that it's a spreadable disease that affects others and defend that person's right to infect and kill others as long as they can only consider themselves and be utterly selfish.
I suspect opinions on this may also be coloured by how many people you know have died from it and how they caught it...
IMO this is scaremongering. You cannot force office staff to have a vaccine. You cannot get sued for not making someone have a vaccine that you cannot legally enforce.
I agree with the workers in the NHS having it for example but an office?? Really?
I respect your view but totally disagree with your logic.
Covid is serious no doubt to a very small % of people and any deaths are tragic......but it is not like it is ebola. My wife is a nurse and so I'm not blinkered to the cold harsh reality of this as she worked in ITU at the heights of all this.
I am fortunate in that every one of my employees has been in the queue for vaccines as soon as they were eligible. I have not insisted that anyone share their vaccination status with me but they all have done so voluntarily by telling me that they were going for it. Had any decided not to take it or not to tell me, I equally would not have forced them to.
We have to live in a world where we assume that we can catch it from anyone and that anyone who has been vaccinated could be one of the unfortunate ones who did not gain immunity for whatever reason. So we all have to be responsible for our own actions and assume that any contact that we have with any other person could result in infection. Our own personal attitude to infection, within the current Government guidance, dictates whether we choose to wear a face covering even in situations where we are not obliged to, whether we limit the number of people that we interact with outside of work in order to minimise our potential impact on the risk of infection within the workplace, etc. As employers, we have to assume that everyone could be inadvertently coming in to the building infected and risk assess accordingly. I know for a fact that some people in our office do regular lateral flow tests and some don't. I am not going to insist that people do them anymore than I am going to insist upon vaccination. Would I ask a new recruit if they were vaccinated? I'm not sure at this stage.
Based on your logic, we had better not ever ever ever come into contact with anyone else in our life. Just in case, they have covid. Then we had better not touch anything that anyone has ever touched just in case.
The risks after the vaccine are surely so small as to not even be an issue.
I think you are being a little over cautious to say the least.
I cannot see any possible way that a firm would be able to insist on an employee being vaccinated.
I also think it would be crazy if staff would even consider not going to work if a member of staff was not vaccinated- surely this is not an issue?
If over 80% of the adult population are vaccinated then surely the risks are so small now that we almost don't need to worry about the non vaccinated.
I totally agree. Cleverly designed contracts don't change the fact that these schemes have no commercial substance other than to defraud HMRC.
I know one of the expromoters of a massive scheme like this that was picked up by hmrc a few years back. Isle of man scheme too. All seemed great at the time, too good to be true in fact. The 2 existing partners of my firm outvoted me to not get involved- they were so right. At the time I was pretty inexperienced and almost got duped by the spiel. Learnt a valuable lesson all those years back as that could have had serious implications for us.
I was told that the agent line is just answered by the same ones who answer any other caller. This is the reason we are all having to wait so long to get any call answered.
The amount of time we have spent this year on furlough claims, furlough advice, researching for grants and communicating these with clients, speaking to clients on how they will survive etc has been huge. We are considerably behind compared to previous years and so a lot of tax returns will be late.
I can't see the logic of HMRC forcing everyone to appeal a penalty that is going to be reduced anyway. Just waiver them for 3 months.
Even companies house have done it and they never budge on penalties.
I predict an announcement next week to confirm this. Just saves huge amounts of work for everyone.
If there was less work at the time due to covid 19 and they put staff on furlough then I personally can't see the issue with using the scheme.
There was no requirement to have profits below a certain figure to be eligible so I think it's unfair to expect them to pay it back.
My answers
'HMRC had initially indicated that an FBI-2 alone was sufficient for clients to appear on the list but this now does not appear to be the case. Also, a form 64–8 on its own is not enough to allow online access'.
This has always frustrated me. A 64-8 should be all that is needed in my opinon.
I agree with this. The FRS105 accounts are terrible.
Although a lot of clients probably don't care as they just want the accounts filed and tax figure.
I was also told October by HMRC when I rang for an update.
IMO this is scaremongering. You cannot force office staff to have a vaccine. You cannot get sued for not making someone have a vaccine that you cannot legally enforce.
I agree with the workers in the NHS having it for example but an office?? Really?
I respect your view but totally disagree with your logic.
Covid is serious no doubt to a very small % of people and any deaths are tragic......but it is not like it is ebola. My wife is a nurse and so I'm not blinkered to the cold harsh reality of this as she worked in ITU at the heights of all this.
Based on your logic, we had better not ever ever ever come into contact with anyone else in our life. Just in case, they have covid. Then we had better not touch anything that anyone has ever touched just in case.
The risks after the vaccine are surely so small as to not even be an issue.
I think you are being a little over cautious to say the least.
I cannot see any possible way that a firm would be able to insist on an employee being vaccinated.
I also think it would be crazy if staff would even consider not going to work if a member of staff was not vaccinated- surely this is not an issue?
If over 80% of the adult population are vaccinated then surely the risks are so small now that we almost don't need to worry about the non vaccinated.
When you say trebled, how much are you talking? I mean, were you paying a crazy low price before?
I totally agree. Cleverly designed contracts don't change the fact that these schemes have no commercial substance other than to defraud HMRC.
I know one of the expromoters of a massive scheme like this that was picked up by hmrc a few years back. Isle of man scheme too. All seemed great at the time, too good to be true in fact. The 2 existing partners of my firm outvoted me to not get involved- they were so right. At the time I was pretty inexperienced and almost got duped by the spiel. Learnt a valuable lesson all those years back as that could have had serious implications for us.
I was told that the agent line is just answered by the same ones who answer any other caller. This is the reason we are all having to wait so long to get any call answered.
The amount of time we have spent this year on furlough claims, furlough advice, researching for grants and communicating these with clients, speaking to clients on how they will survive etc has been huge. We are considerably behind compared to previous years and so a lot of tax returns will be late.
I can't see the logic of HMRC forcing everyone to appeal a penalty that is going to be reduced anyway. Just waiver them for 3 months.
Even companies house have done it and they never budge on penalties.
I predict an announcement next week to confirm this. Just saves huge amounts of work for everyone.
If there was less work at the time due to covid 19 and they put staff on furlough then I personally can't see the issue with using the scheme.
There was no requirement to have profits below a certain figure to be eligible so I think it's unfair to expect them to pay it back.