How is your HMRC experience.................... ..

[Hampster Gull]

Mine went straight through about 1.5 hours ago, unfortunately.

just got through

 

[HantsSeagull]

Was that through World Pay?, I had the same my card declined. In the end I did a bank transfer.

yep exactly.

 

[vegster]

How did you find the transition from self-employed to employment Managers over managing you etc.

Easy really, I was working as a self employed locum and it was pretty good work until the company decided it would cut costs by not employing locums .... it was a case of go back to being employed and losing 6K a year or working for the minimum wage elsewhere.

 

[LlcoolJ]

Make the most of the easy system we have now - you wait until they bring it quarterly submissions

This. It's going to be a total clusterf#ck of unimaginable proportions.

 

[LlcoolJ]

I'm an accountant, and still stuck in the office. Still waiting for the paperwork from four clients, who will all expect it done when they bring it in tomorrow. Unfortunately for them, I'm doing them on a first come, first served basis. And I can't physically do all four within a day.

You only have four returns to do tomorrow? I wish! [emoji6]

 

[Hampster Gull]

Just over one hour to do both mine and my wife's. quick review tomorrow evening and then will submit

 

[Lurker]

your filing for the year April 2015-2016 right? why does anyone leave this for 9 months?

I ask myself the same question every single year, I answer the question every single year by telling myself to do it early this time, ... and every single year I ignore my own advice and complete it on the 31st again.
I cannot tell you why.
It's madness.

As it happens I've managed to break my addiction to brinkmanship this year and I actually submitted my return and paid what I owe 30 minutes ago!!
I feel liberated .....

I don't understand the angst with the online self assessment.
Completing it was a breeze, it was finding all the damn paperwork that does my head in, but that isn't HMRC's fault.
If I wasn't such a **** with my filing the whole thing could be done in less than an hour.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

This. It's going to be a total clusterf#ck of unimaginable proportions.

Ahem ... I work for HMRC .... in their IT department ..... aka CDIO

# prepares for deluge of abuse #

The system you are referring to is called "CESA" [Computerised Environment for Self Assessment] and has been running for many many years and is incredibly robust - what has increased over recent years is the popularity of online SA submissions, and for some reason, folk like to leave it right up to the wire which puts a massive strain on the network [not the CESA system itself].

If you think about is for a moment, the option to do your return quarterly is an all round winner.
Doing a SA return once a year is a mare for many - they can't remember what they did a year ago so its always new / strange to them - doing it once every 3 months will make SA more familiar and less daunting.
If there are any adjustments [either way] these can be identified and settled sooner - the payment should therefore be smaller and thus less "painful".
The load should be more evenly spread through the year rather than big bang in the last week of Jan.
The challenge will be to adapt all payroll systems to churn out quarterly P60s

Believe me, HMRC are currently going through major trauma change as they close the Aspire contract with Capgemini and Fujitsu but there is no doubt they are becoming more "customer focused" with their IT as they strive to deliver a digital tax system. Very different to what they were doing 15 years ago.

Remember too that HMRC is not the bad guy, we only collect what the politicians tell us to collect, no more, no less. If you don't like the tax you pay, the chancellor is the man to "hate".

Last point, I don't work on CESA so can't fix any UTP IDs to favourable mates rates ....

 

[Pavilionaire]

I'm an accountant, and still stuck in the office. Still waiting for the paperwork from four clients, who will all expect it done when they bring it in tomorrow. Unfortunately for them, I'm doing them on a first come, first served basis. And I can't physically do all four within a day.

I'm with you, brother. Almost exactly my position verbatim.

I've just filed all the Returns I've had approved over the last hour or so, I'm not leaving it til the last day just in case the website crashes.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Ahem ... I work for HMRC .... in their IT department ..... aka CDIO

# prepares for deluge of abuse #

The system you are referring to is called "CESA" [Computerised Environment for Self Assessment] and has been running for many many years and is incredibly robust - what has increased over recent years is the popularity of online SA submissions, and for some reason, folk like to leave it right up to the wire which puts a massive strain on the network [not the CESA system itself].

If you think about is for a moment, the option to do your return quarterly is an all round winner.
Doing a SA return once a year is a mare for many - they can't remember what they did a year ago so its always new / strange to them - doing it once every 3 months will make SA more familiar and less daunting.
If there are any adjustments [either way] these can be identified and settled sooner - the payment should therefore be smaller and thus less "painful".
The load should be more evenly spread through the year rather than big bang in the last week of Jan.
The challenge will be to adapt all payroll systems to churn out quarterly P60s

Believe me, HMRC are currently going through major trauma change as they close the Aspire contract with Capgemini and Fujitsu but there is no doubt they are becoming more "customer focused" with their IT as they strive to deliver a digital tax system. Very different to what they were doing 15 years ago.

Remember too that HMRC is not the bad guy, we only collect what the politicians tell us to collect, no more, no less. If you don't like the tax you pay, the chancellor is the man to "hate".

Last point, I don't work on CESA so can't fix any UTP IDs to favourable mates rates ....

So when are you guys going to respond to the consultation response to Making Tax Digital? HMRC response was supposed to be given June / July 2016, then after Brexit it was put back to January 2017 and here we are with 1 day left and the new system supposed to kick in from April 2018? The tax profession is almost unanimous in calling for a minimum 1 year postponement, there's no word on the promised "free" software, it is a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[perseus]

It takes me ages to get around to doing the books, but then it does not really take long.

When it first started it didn't work properly and I could not submit my Return(s) on time, so I had an excuse and got out of a fine.

Trouble comes when I change my computer (a pain in itself) and have to input details. Best bet would be to have a reserve laptop with all the passwords etc.

 

[NooBHA]

Corrected for you

HMRC have no compassion or leniency for Big Business...............It's Governments who have Compassion and leniency for them.

 

[NooBHA]

Found it interesting that they have added the info. on personal State Pensions on the on-line Self Assessment this year. Shows how many years fully paid, how many missing and the projected pension receivable. Up from 30 years to 35 years. Still a few missing on mine as only voluntary NI required on my income of last 20 years. Need to do some calculations based on life expectancy and the £3,000 I could voluntarily pay. Mrs K would be mad if I died before 68 and paid the 3 Grand for nothing.

Don't pay voluntary Class 3 contributions. They are about £15 per week. Start a small business with small profits just enough so you can pay Class 2 at £2.85 pw, with no tax to pay on the profits, to catch up on your missing years

 

[NooBHA]

Ahem ... I work for HMRC .... in their IT department ..... aka CDIO

# prepares for deluge of abuse #

The system you are referring to is called "CESA" [Computerised Environment for Self Assessment] and has been running for many many years and is incredibly robust - what has increased over recent years is the popularity of online SA submissions, and for some reason, folk like to leave it right up to the wire which puts a massive strain on the network [not the CESA system itself].


....

No offence but whoever set the programme up to link NIC with Income Tax has totally ****ed up.

Yer systems cant cope with people who hit the Max NIC at one source of income but who have a secondary source of income.

HMRC systems still charge the secondary source to NIC - Now they are using internal workarounds to correct this after they alter taxpayers lodged ITRs. And they are only doing it when challenged by Accountants and Agent, a lot of whom don't even notice it themselves because many are not up to speed on NIC issues.

When you consider that Software manufactures can get the computations correct but HMRC cant get their own systems to calculate correctly, it is a sad state of affairs. Especially when HMRC have to agree the contracts for the programmes beforehand.

They signed off on the Accountants software programmes and then got their own programmes wrong.

And here in lies the problem and wait for the backlash - Anyone who filed using HMRC systems and who hit the max NIC at one source will have potentially pay too much NIC. Surprises me that the Press have not been all over this yet.

And anyone who has an Accountant who is not well versed on NIC issues are overlooking this as well.

So anyone who has more than one source of income with both of them quite high should check their calculations again especially if their secondary source has been charged to more than 2% class 4 NIC because HMRC don't seem to be holding their hands up publicly to this YET.

 

[OzMike]

Still waiting for a VAT refund of about 3,500 quid to be paid back to me and been waiting since 2005, not much chance now.
Would be different if the other way around.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

No offence but whoever set the programme up to link NIC with Income Tax has totally ****ed up.

Yer systems cant cope with people who hit the Max NIC at one source of income but who have a secondary source of income.

The NI regime is managed by Accenture - I don't know that system at all and especially any batch interface with CESA.
If you have two sources of income, just make sure they are both using identical NINO [NI Number] - you'd be surprised ....

 

[Charlies Shinpad]

If you keep your paperwork up straight then it's a breeze doing self assessment
Done mine just before New Year, it worked out they owed me a couple of grand and it was in my bank account within 14 days

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

Still waiting for a VAT refund of about 3,500 quid to be paid back to me and been waiting since 2005, not much chance now.
Would be different if the other way around.

Was the refund due for 2004/05 or 2005/06 ? HMRC was formed by the merger of the Inland Revenue and Her Majesty's Customs and Excise which took effect on 18 April 2005. So it might be you claim is on the old [defunct] Customs and Excise. The Customs systems [inc VAT] are run out of Southend and again I have little knowledge of these systems.

Suspect the seven year rule applies ... can't believe you didn't chase this - was it in dispute?

 

[Garage_Doors]

Always have my books completed by end of April so not what my liability is and paid by bank transfer yesterday.
Don't see why you need to go on there site to pay, am i missing something?

 

[OzMike]

Was the refund due for 2004/05 or 2005/06 ? HMRC was formed by the merger of the Inland Revenue and Her Majesty's Customs and Excise which took effect on 18 April 2005. So it might be you claim is on the old [defunct] Customs and Excise. The Customs systems [inc VAT] are run out of Southend and again I have little knowledge of these systems.

Suspect the seven year rule applies ... can't believe you didn't chase this - was it in dispute?

It was for the 3rd quarter of 2005, I did chase but was totally ignored and have been ever since.