Wouldn't it have been easier to program the SEISS figures into the agents view of self assessment. It must be more efficient than generating all this additional work for accountants and creating a whole new industry at HMRC.
I live in Bolton which had a harsh lockdown for just over 3 weeks because cases rocketed. It was a case of restrictions are easing, then they weren't, then they were eased, then we were put into tier 2 and now possibly tier 3. It is impossible for me to help businesses to plan day to day. No one ever said why the cases rocketed from very few to the worst place in the UK. I presume that the track and trace wasn't up to analysing why or they didn't want to make it pubic.
The reason given by the council was that a super spreader had come back from Ibiza and not isolated, gone out with friends round the pubs and spread it that way. Whilst we were locked down, publicans were pouring beer down the drains and all that happened was that people travelled to other areas to go out and spread it around that way.
Figures here are still not coming down no matter what we do. On a personal level I haven't seen my mum who is in a care home since March - they locked down early, the home has never "unlocked" I have only seen my grandchildren three times since March and then only outdoors.
I can't download the app to my iPhone - its too old and I'm don't need to upgrade. My husband has the app and for the most part when we do go out for the weekly shop we are usually together. Unless track and trace works, people cooperate and proper analysis is done on the reasons for spread I don't think the local lockdowns will work. Local lockdowns really are like whack a mole. It didn't work here - the figures speak for themselves.
Thanks Jennifer for your perspective. I'm very lucky I can afford not to charge clients in the current climate and survive personally and as a business. My husband and I have very little outgoings especially now as we are only going out once a week for the big shop. I'm sure other accountants will struggle to make ends meet and I feel for them as well. They are stuck between do they shut their doors and tap into any government payments they can get or continue doing the best they can for their clients and receive potentially nothing. In my case even the normal compliance work, payroll, meeting deadlines etc payments will be deferred for clients until they can afford to pay, if they can't and shut up shop then as you say its something we will need to guide them through. Its truly heartbreaking all round.
This would be a nightmare scenario. It would rely on a Cis type reporting system being operated by any business who used a self employed person. We all know how difficult it is if the Cis reclaim doesn't agree with HMRC systems. It's putting the emphasis on businesses reporting the deductions correctly. Self employed people can work for lots of different people and could potentially end up with hundreds of deductions each year. How would the deduction work Paye deduction on the whole invoice or just on the labour element? How would people earning less than their personal allowance be treated? All this working alongside the benefits system isn't considering the individuals. It's just making sure HMRC has first dibs on people's income. It will cause hardship due to cash flow, people will still have legitimate business expenses and their personal allowance. It's putting unnecessary burdens on business. We all know that HMRC systems won't cope with the level of complexity that the scheme would bring.
HMRC are too timid when dealing with the rich and famous, but as others said very brave when dealing with someone who owes a few hundred pounds. They need to spend money on getting a team of the best people possible to deal with cases like this. There is no point dropping a file on an inspectors desk and hoping they can deal with it along with everything else. What are they frightened of? If they have a sound case they have nothing to lose. There is too much at stake £84m is a lot of lost revenue.
A tad harsh. As accountants we will still do our best of our clients within the law. We will fight for them if they've done nothing wrong and if they have made a genuine mistake we will do our best to mitigate to consequences. What we can't do is help someone who is purposely involved in dodgy dealings.
I have to agree with the previous posters on this. When accountants come across things that they aren't comfortable with our course of action is send a report and disengage the client.
It would be nice if we at least got an acknowledgement when we sent in a report that is was being looked at. There is no need to divulge the outcome.
What happens now - in all likelihood nothing and the dodgy dealings continue to the next accountant and the next.
We can follow what ever processes are in place, have all the necessary monitoring by our accountancy bodies but nothing will change until HMRC start to act on our reports.
I've just (yesterday) had several tax returns withdrawn and penalties removed. The client hadn't been self employed in my case he had always been PAYE until he lost his job. He had therefore no reason to expect to complete a tax return. The client became homeless, was sleeping rough and in hostels and eventually was sectioned. Initially HMRC refused the exceptional circumstances but following this case we tried again and were successful. Presumably unknown to us HMRC were waiting the outcome of this case. You might get a different response if you try again.
These schemes are still being peddled to unsuspecting contractors particularly to people new into contracting. That is were the clamp down should start. A friend who had lost her PAYE job had started to sign up with agencies. One of these agencies had passed her details to a company who was promoting one of these loan schemes. They gave her the hard sell and she contacted me for my opinion because paying no tax seemed to good to be true. The company had told her it was all approved by HMRC and quoted the registration number from HMRC. I sent her the info about loan schemes and pointed out HMRC would be after her for tax and NI plus she would have to pay the loan companies fees. Happily she declined to have anything to do with that agency and the company selling the loan scheme.
It was interesting to hear that HMRC will now become a preferential creditor when businesses run into difficulties. I worry that it could be an incentive to push businesses that have assets over the brink rather than negotiate time to pay agreements. It could also make credit and loans harder to get.
My answers
Wouldn't it have been easier to program the SEISS figures into the agents view of self assessment. It must be more efficient than generating all this additional work for accountants and creating a whole new industry at HMRC.
I live in Bolton which had a harsh lockdown for just over 3 weeks because cases rocketed. It was a case of restrictions are easing, then they weren't, then they were eased, then we were put into tier 2 and now possibly tier 3. It is impossible for me to help businesses to plan day to day. No one ever said why the cases rocketed from very few to the worst place in the UK. I presume that the track and trace wasn't up to analysing why or they didn't want to make it pubic.
The reason given by the council was that a super spreader had come back from Ibiza and not isolated, gone out with friends round the pubs and spread it that way. Whilst we were locked down, publicans were pouring beer down the drains and all that happened was that people travelled to other areas to go out and spread it around that way.
Figures here are still not coming down no matter what we do. On a personal level I haven't seen my mum who is in a care home since March - they locked down early, the home has never "unlocked" I have only seen my grandchildren three times since March and then only outdoors.
I can't download the app to my iPhone - its too old and I'm don't need to upgrade. My husband has the app and for the most part when we do go out for the weekly shop we are usually together. Unless track and trace works, people cooperate and proper analysis is done on the reasons for spread I don't think the local lockdowns will work. Local lockdowns really are like whack a mole. It didn't work here - the figures speak for themselves.
Thanks Jennifer for your perspective. I'm very lucky I can afford not to charge clients in the current climate and survive personally and as a business. My husband and I have very little outgoings especially now as we are only going out once a week for the big shop. I'm sure other accountants will struggle to make ends meet and I feel for them as well. They are stuck between do they shut their doors and tap into any government payments they can get or continue doing the best they can for their clients and receive potentially nothing. In my case even the normal compliance work, payroll, meeting deadlines etc payments will be deferred for clients until they can afford to pay, if they can't and shut up shop then as you say its something we will need to guide them through. Its truly heartbreaking all round.
This would be a nightmare scenario. It would rely on a Cis type reporting system being operated by any business who used a self employed person. We all know how difficult it is if the Cis reclaim doesn't agree with HMRC systems. It's putting the emphasis on businesses reporting the deductions correctly. Self employed people can work for lots of different people and could potentially end up with hundreds of deductions each year. How would the deduction work Paye deduction on the whole invoice or just on the labour element? How would people earning less than their personal allowance be treated? All this working alongside the benefits system isn't considering the individuals. It's just making sure HMRC has first dibs on people's income. It will cause hardship due to cash flow, people will still have legitimate business expenses and their personal allowance. It's putting unnecessary burdens on business. We all know that HMRC systems won't cope with the level of complexity that the scheme would bring.
HMRC are too timid when dealing with the rich and famous, but as others said very brave when dealing with someone who owes a few hundred pounds. They need to spend money on getting a team of the best people possible to deal with cases like this. There is no point dropping a file on an inspectors desk and hoping they can deal with it along with everything else. What are they frightened of? If they have a sound case they have nothing to lose. There is too much at stake £84m is a lot of lost revenue.
A tad harsh. As accountants we will still do our best of our clients within the law. We will fight for them if they've done nothing wrong and if they have made a genuine mistake we will do our best to mitigate to consequences. What we can't do is help someone who is purposely involved in dodgy dealings.
I have to agree with the previous posters on this. When accountants come across things that they aren't comfortable with our course of action is send a report and disengage the client.
It would be nice if we at least got an acknowledgement when we sent in a report that is was being looked at. There is no need to divulge the outcome.
What happens now - in all likelihood nothing and the dodgy dealings continue to the next accountant and the next.
We can follow what ever processes are in place, have all the necessary monitoring by our accountancy bodies but nothing will change until HMRC start to act on our reports.
I've just (yesterday) had several tax returns withdrawn and penalties removed. The client hadn't been self employed in my case he had always been PAYE until he lost his job. He had therefore no reason to expect to complete a tax return. The client became homeless, was sleeping rough and in hostels and eventually was sectioned. Initially HMRC refused the exceptional circumstances but following this case we tried again and were successful. Presumably unknown to us HMRC were waiting the outcome of this case. You might get a different response if you try again.
These schemes are still being peddled to unsuspecting contractors particularly to people new into contracting. That is were the clamp down should start. A friend who had lost her PAYE job had started to sign up with agencies. One of these agencies had passed her details to a company who was promoting one of these loan schemes. They gave her the hard sell and she contacted me for my opinion because paying no tax seemed to good to be true. The company had told her it was all approved by HMRC and quoted the registration number from HMRC. I sent her the info about loan schemes and pointed out HMRC would be after her for tax and NI plus she would have to pay the loan companies fees. Happily she declined to have anything to do with that agency and the company selling the loan scheme.
It was interesting to hear that HMRC will now become a preferential creditor when businesses run into difficulties. I worry that it could be an incentive to push businesses that have assets over the brink rather than negotiate time to pay agreements. It could also make credit and loans harder to get.