Worked for Inland Revenue for 11 years in the 70s and 80s before I saw the light!
Progressed from working for medium sized firms of accountants to starting my own practice in 1996 and havent looked back since, with hubby joining me in partnership 7 years later.
I worked for HMRC then accounting firms before starting my own business in 1996. I do have a tax qualification and am a member of my professional body but having worked in tax for more than 50 years now consider myself qualified primarily by experience. When I worked for a large firm of accountants, one of the partners (Chartered or certified, not sure which now) was absolutely useless at dealing with tax and had zero interest in keeping up to date, so relied on the tax department to keep the clients happy.
At the end of the day it makes no difference at all whether you are a member of a professional body but how much effort you make in keeping up to date with the constant changes to the tax regime. That is down to the individual concerned. I like to think that I have been pretty good at that over the years and have had many thanks from my clients for looking after their tax affairs but that has all been the result of my reading all the tax articles I could find and attending local or online courses wherever possible, so that I could provide the best service I could.
This from HMRC's regular "Help and Support" emails:
"These changes do not affect the Agent Dedicated Line (ADL) which will operate as normal.
Agents should use our online services such as the Self Assessment service for agents, the Income Record Viewer and our online tool that lets agents check our performance and service levels for post and online services.
Calls to the ADL should only be for queries that cannot be resolved online. We’ll continue to monitor the ADL as part of our work in encouraging customers and agents to go online. "
So when they start getting more calls from agents trying to help clients who cannot manage the online support themselves, I presume they will then decide that we are making too many calls and will restrict us even further!
As CGT is mostly a "voluntary" tax I'm a firm believer in going back to a simple flat rate - possibly of 30%. It would certainly make life easier for those currently having to guess at their level of income when declaring residential gains. But please increase the annual allowance to a reasonable amount! Pensioners with small shareholdings don't know how to calculate gains on shares they may have held for a long time and company reorganisations may result in unexpected gains (Glaxo demerger last year is an example I have had to deal with recently).
I presume HMRC already have the ability to check spouses income as they already do so when claims for the marriage allowance to be transferred are made?
Disappointed that there was nothing at all for pensioners but I suppose that is because we had the triple lock increase. It still means that more pensioners are going to be paying tax though and potentially trying (unsuccessfully?) to deal with HMRC!
and do they know how many attempted to use the service and failed because their questions weren't understood? I've tried twice and even using simple words they just didn't get it..
I thought we all had to work until we are 70...... ish.
I am 71, so it is definitely time to go! I've been hanging on to a few pensioners and high earners but think I've had enough, even though most of them won't be in MTD.
My answers
I worked for HMRC then accounting firms before starting my own business in 1996. I do have a tax qualification and am a member of my professional body but having worked in tax for more than 50 years now consider myself qualified primarily by experience. When I worked for a large firm of accountants, one of the partners (Chartered or certified, not sure which now) was absolutely useless at dealing with tax and had zero interest in keeping up to date, so relied on the tax department to keep the clients happy.
At the end of the day it makes no difference at all whether you are a member of a professional body but how much effort you make in keeping up to date with the constant changes to the tax regime. That is down to the individual concerned. I like to think that I have been pretty good at that over the years and have had many thanks from my clients for looking after their tax affairs but that has all been the result of my reading all the tax articles I could find and attending local or online courses wherever possible, so that I could provide the best service I could.
Must catch up with my emails more quickly. I've just posted a couple of comments on yesterday's report!!
This from HMRC's regular "Help and Support" emails:
"These changes do not affect the Agent Dedicated Line (ADL) which will operate as normal.
Agents should use our online services such as the Self Assessment service for agents, the Income Record Viewer and our online tool that lets agents check our performance and service levels for post and online services.
Calls to the ADL should only be for queries that cannot be resolved online. We’ll continue to monitor the ADL as part of our work in encouraging customers and agents to go online. "
So when they start getting more calls from agents trying to help clients who cannot manage the online support themselves, I presume they will then decide that we are making too many calls and will restrict us even further!
Last time I tried I actually spoke to someone after 59 minutes and was then cut off while he was deciding if he could deal with my query!
As CGT is mostly a "voluntary" tax I'm a firm believer in going back to a simple flat rate - possibly of 30%. It would certainly make life easier for those currently having to guess at their level of income when declaring residential gains. But please increase the annual allowance to a reasonable amount! Pensioners with small shareholdings don't know how to calculate gains on shares they may have held for a long time and company reorganisations may result in unexpected gains (Glaxo demerger last year is an example I have had to deal with recently).
I presume HMRC already have the ability to check spouses income as they already do so when claims for the marriage allowance to be transferred are made?
Disappointed that there was nothing at all for pensioners but I suppose that is because we had the triple lock increase. It still means that more pensioners are going to be paying tax though and potentially trying (unsuccessfully?) to deal with HMRC!
and do they know how many attempted to use the service and failed because their questions weren't understood? I've tried twice and even using simple words they just didn't get it..
I am 71, so it is definitely time to go! I've been hanging on to a few pensioners and high earners but think I've had enough, even though most of them won't be in MTD.
Thanks Helen.