MTD has gone live, now what?
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Mark has spent over 25 years working in tax, beginning his career as a Revenue Officer at HMRC, and then becoming Tax Senior for a UK stockbroker. Mark joined Thomson Reuters in 2006 and now holds the position of Tax Product Manager. Mark was named AccountingWEB’s 2017 Software Excellence Pioneer for his commitment to the accounting profession...
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Stuff HMRC, I say.
Deadline for signing up clients who need to file by 7 July happens to coincide with deadlines for P11D/P11D(b) submission, and so during the same processing period, not to mention ERS Returns, which will be prepared during the same period, and lest we forget, final EPS where this hasn't already been done via FPS.
Of course, we all also have clients with a 2nd POA due 31 July who will need reminders (and it's not simply a case of a block reminder - they'll need to know how much, which means we need to check if anything is already paid - which all takes time).
It's about time HMRC recognised the time and effort we put into doing their jobs and paid us appropriately.
Stuff HMRC, I say.
Deadline for signing up clients who need to file by 7 July happens to coincide with deadlines for P11D/P11D(b) submission
Deadline of 7th July means the quarter is for March to May. In which case this doesn't fall in to mtd. Its for periods beginning ON or AFTER 1st April. So not really sure the issue.
one would hope they sort out the basic functionality first before starting anything else eg:
1. Agent Direct debit set up, or HMRC will be missing a huge number of payments, and having to employ a new army of VAT collectors.
2. Address changes (the new system doesn't even give you the address of the VAT reg company, so you don't know what is being held, let along let you change it)
3. Access to the current VAT certificate
As for SA, given a tax return will still need to be filed, the business case is even worse for that than for VAT.
I would hope that once HMRC compare the tax take with MTD to before (which is after all the whole reason for this debacle - apparently) and find there is no discernable difference heads will roll. I live in hope.
I doubt it (the heads rolling). The fact is other countries have shinier tax tech and our lot will not want to turn up to joint events with them when they only have an old banger.
The fact the old banger works (most of the time) whereas the shiny new model has teething issues will be neither here nor there- they just need to keep up with the neighbours.
I agree, the functionality is appalling!
Nearly all our clients use DD but you can't setup new or change the account over when client swaps bank, changes to address, period of return etc can't be made and you loose access to VAT certificate.
Given we were 100% cloud coming into this the only thing causing us grief is the tools (or lack of) that HMRC have decided to provide which don't match the old tools. Bonkers!
ha-ha-ha ... I nearly split my sides ...one would hope they sort out the basic functionality first before starting anything else ...
What we have found time and again with our clients is that they use our software and expect it to be able to submit VAT returns without having signed up for Making Tax Digital for VAT.
How clear have HMRC made it to businesses that they or their agent must sign up for MTD for VAT before they can start submitting their VAT returns using MTD for VAT software? From our experience, not very!
HMRC have been dreadful throughout this who process and clearly don't care but at the same time are desperate for taxpayers to submit. I have tried to claim exemption for some and have written three letter's to VAT written enquires and after 10 weeks have no reply. I am not sure what to do next. Our clients have turnovers between £85000 and £300000 none have ever used a spreadsheet or and Accounts package and have limited computer knowledge and only have the the very basic of accounting skills running the smallest business entities and so its a big ask.
What we have found is that NOT one of our clients is remotely interested in MTD, most can see little or no benefit from it and are upset about having to pay for the privilege of it.
Yes we are in for an exciting few months. No or very little VAT coming in and potentially £39 billion going to subsidise another ill thought out inefficient system!
No need to bother with MTD . A client this morning filed their VAT return for the quarter ended 30th of June 2019 the old way and their turnover is well above the limit . I think it will be quite some time till HMRC physically prevent you from using the portal . Why would they? If the returns aren’t filed they suffer a substantial loss of revenue too
Given that it's perfectly possible for turnover to be above the threshold and yet to be exempt from MtD for various reasons, they can't prevent you from filing the old way.
In August they will be bringing in a new interface for people not directly using the API.
Given that it's perfectly possible for turnover to be above the threshold and yet to be exempt from MtD for various reasons, they can't prevent you from filing the old way.
Add that to the fact that a VAT QE 30 June wouldn't fall into the mandatory MTD start date anyway.
Of course, the soft landing on penalties is dependent on the taxpayer trying to comply, so just because the Return is filed that doesn't mean penalties for failure to comply won't be charged.
Due to a holiday, I was unable to sign up my monthly VAT client in time for his April return, so it was submitted the "old way" on 3rd June and HMRC issued his refund on 10th June. The May return has just been submitted, again the old way, but with VAT to pay, just waiting to see if HMRC take the DD. Client has sucessfully moved from paper to Sage software so we are mostly there.....
Just had this from one of the Team who couldn't find how to change a Vat quarter for a client using the new ASA and as the client had registered for MTD the ability to do so on the old agent account was gone. She posted a query using the Do You Need Help With This Page link in the ASA.
'Just had an email back from HMRC saying, they couldn’t help and referred me to Vat Helpline telephone number.
Rang them, stated the issue and were informed that HMRC are working on restoring the link where we can change details on the account as before and access Vat Certificate etc., but not available at the moment.
So told me to complete a Vat 484 form and post it!
So much for Digital! '
Priceless!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have monthly VAT returns so I have already filed 2 x monthly VAT returns under MTD - and I haven't had the usual email acknowledgement from HMRC -
I know the April ones were successfully received, having spoken with HMRC they verbally acknowledged receipt and could read the figures back to me,
but I did not get email acknowledgements !!
I have queries this with HMRC but not received a reply yet.
"Sorry, we're experiencing technical difficulties."
Same old, same old, utter drivel from HMRC.
"Sorry, we're experiencing technical difficulties."
It advises checking up a few minutes later, but in reality a few DAYS later the service remains utterly pants, still down.
I have put my concerns over this on the written record with HMRC Agent Account Management service today as follows:
"Obviously we were all expecting this, given the totally incompetent way HMRC has run and specified this IT project from the start. I would just like to place this on the written record, though, and to reinforce the point that I am not going to waste much of my time on HMRC’s latest mucked up IT project.
Instead, I shall just:
• Use the portal, or
• Print off and post VAT returns to HMRC if necessary.
And of course totally reject any fines or penalties which come out of this. And I’ll be busy online advising all other accountants to do the same thing."
For another client I already had authorised, "no VAT returns outstanding" per HMRC. Per the portal, the June return was waiting to be submitted.
So I just submitted via the portal and have kept a record of what I did and why. It's not up to me to make HMRC's stupid systems work.
Yesterday's MTD rubbishy drivel from HMRC did not in the event stop me from making a successful submission. But it took an hour to figure out the problem, and it's bound to cause problems for others.
The root cause is the rubbish way HMRC implemented this, with zero proper user acceptance testing before going live.
I had an error message from MTD that the dates were not right.
The required dates were
01/04/2019
30/06/2019
The dates in my submission were:
01/04/2019
30/06/2019
Or so it seemed. It turned out that in my submission the cell had the date and time format in it, only my source spreadsheet just showed the date. So I edited the format to remove the @ sign at the end, which adds the time.
Then resubmitted and it all worked.
This is the sort of thing that proper user testing with real taxpayers would have picked up, but of course HMRC can’t be bothered with that kinda stuff.