HMRC Tax Forum

[XFool]

HMRC now has it's own forum for answering questions about tax:

Welcome to the HMRC Community Forums

The Community Forums will help you find answers to your questions about tax and benefits. Use the search bar to find an answer to your query or use the forums to ask a question.

https://community.hmrc.gov.uk

[BobGe]

Anonymous?

[Lootman]

Anonymous?

Yeah, I'd be very dubious about asking questions there if it is not, as it creates a paper trail of your thoughts and activities.

For much the same reasons I have not set up an online account with HMRC. I still deal with them through the post.

[baldchap]

I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

No thanks.

[Charlottesquare]

Anonymous?

Yeah, I'd be very dubious about asking questions there if it is not, as it creates a paper trail of your thoughts and activities.

For much the same reasons I have not set up an online account with HMRC. I still deal with them through the post.

Start looking forward to making tax digital, brought to you by the friendly Conservative Party.


https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ax-digital

[BobGe]

Start looking forward to making tax digital, brought to you by the friendly Conservative Party.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ax-digital

Perhaps not so much the Conservative Party as HMT. It should be obvious what the intention is. It should be given two digits.

[Charlottesquare]

Start looking forward to making tax digital, brought to you by the friendly Conservative Party.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ax-digital

Perhaps not so much the Conservative Party as HMT. It should be obvious what the intention is. It should be given two digits.

He/she who is in charge takes the rap, they took in consultation responses and then ignored the protestations of the professionals (well who needs experts), the thinking that somehow this step will result in better records is a nonsense, rather than wasting money on it they ought to have applied that money to actually training their staff

In the 1980s and through the 1990s I had the utmost respect for HMRC and the training they gave, their inspectors and above were really good tax professionals, my only gripe is I thought their accounting knowledge was only so so, these days they are a mere shadow of what they were and the staff training seems very limited.

If they think smaller business has been on the fiddle put in the graft and do more back duties/ enquiry visits, recruit ex professional practice employees, MTD is merely pretending and the Conservatives are to blame, if they allowed the Treasury to fool them they are even more stupid than I thought they were.

[Nocton]

I find this discussion rather silly and pointless scaremongering. Everything else is or is going digital. If anything, HMRC is behind the trend. One is perfectly entitled to continue to use paper or hang on the phone for tens of minutes, but don't attribute your choice to Machiavellian plotting by HMRC.
I have done my tax on-line for years. As for making it a party political matter ...
It is very easy, much easier than filling in a paper form, and saves quite a bit of time. And you can try various scenarios of things like gift aid this year or last year, to minimise tax paid. It can cope with complex things like selling a business and claiming business property relief, as I have done. Also you can correct the submission if you find you have made a mistake or you have forgotten something. Unlike a paper copy one automatically has a record without photocopying.

[Lootman]

I find this discussion rather silly and pointless scaremongering. Everything else is or is going digital. If anything, HMRC is behind the trend. One is perfectly entitled to continue to use paper or hang on the phone for tens of minutes, but don't attribute your choice to Machiavellian plotting by HMRC.

I have done my tax on-line for years. As for making it a party political matter ...

It is very easy, much easier than filling in a paper form, and saves quite a bit of time. And you can try various scenarios of things like gift aid this year or last year, to minimise tax paid. It can cope with complex things like selling a business and claiming business property relief, as I have done. Also you can correct the submission if you find you have made a mistake or you have forgotten something. Unlike a paper copy one automatically has a record without photocopying.

I think it depends on how you view HMRC. If you see it as benign and here to help you, as it seems you do, then your approach makes sense.

If instead you see HMRC as a vast, invasive and powerful arm of the government, seeking ever more knowledge about your life and private affairs, and as an entity that could be misused by a future (Corbyn?) government as an internal spying resource as we have seen in some countries, then you might take a different view.

The reality is that if you have an online HMRC account, do online returns, and fully participate in all their information-gathering efforts, rather than just do the minimum allowed, then more of your data is available at the tap of a keyboard or to be data mined. For instance I doubt that all the information on a paper return is transcribed into electronic form, whereas it surely all is available online with an online return.

And that is before any privacy or security concerns that relate to HMRC being hacked or leaked.

I find it only marginally inconvenient to do my returns on paper, and keep all communications on paper. That won't change unless HMRC bans paper, which I doubt it will.

[johnhemming]

That won't change unless HMRC bans paper, which I doubt it will.

HMRC will not as far as I know ban paper per se. However, for a Self Assessment return there will soon be a requirement to submit it electronically through a system which has an electronic audit trail.

Those people with a turnover on Self Assessment of 10K or more will be required to participate. It is optional at the moment and is likely to be compulsory in 2022.

[scrumpyjack]

So far as IT is concerned HMRC is an incompetent juggernaut.

For example every year there are many known errors in their self assessment software which they are unable to correct even though the likes of Taxcalc point this out to them months in advance and have no problem producing software that does not contain these errors.
When this happens suppliers like Taxcalc have to program their system to produce the wrong figures and duplicate the HMRC errors as their systems have to produce the same result as HMRC to avoid rejected submissions!

Another example - HMRC on line self assessment system still does not support all the pages of the Tax Return. My son in law is a Vicar and he cannot file online because HMRC does not support the Minister of Religion pages!

This is what happens when the state runs something with no competition. It will be far far worse if and when Labour nationalise vast tracts of the economy.

[Lootman]

That won't change unless HMRC bans paper, which I doubt it will.

HMRC will not as far as I know ban paper per se. However, for a Self Assessment return there will soon be a requirement to submit it electronically through a system which has an electronic audit trail.

Those people with a turnover on Self Assessment of 10K or more will be required to participate. It is optional at the moment and is likely to be compulsory in 2022.

I'd be interested to see how that would work. Sure, they could probably intimidate most people to submit online. But there are still plenty of older people who don't use the internet or don't have computers. Are they to be coralled into a new breed of High Street service provider who will charge 199 quid to enter your information for you?

Again, what if you live overseas but maintain a liability to submit UK taxes? How would they be forced to use such a system? Wouldn't it instead just motivate taxpayers who can't be easily chased down to not submit at all, costing the UK tax revenues?

Right now, if you want, you can still bank purely in bank branches and use paper cheques. You can buy a train ticket at the station. You can buy an air ticket on the phone or via a travel agent like STA. Every major business line still allows a manual or paper approach. For the government to impose this without offering an alternative is the height of arrogance. And I would certainly reconsider my compliance options if that were to be actually implemented by the new government.

[AF62]

I find it only marginally inconvenient to do my returns on paper, and keep all communications on paper. That won't change unless HMRC bans paper, which I doubt it will.

With the digital record keeping requirements for the VAT aspect of Making Tax Digital that have already been introduced they have effectively banned paper records, so why would would you think other taxes are immune to change.

[gt94sss2]

The reality is that if you have an online HMRC account, do online returns, and fully participate in all their information-gathering efforts, rather than just do the minimum allowed, then more of your data is available at the tap of a keyboard or to be data mined. For instance I doubt that all the information on a paper return is transcribed into electronic form, whereas it surely all is available online with an online return.

I'm pretty sure that most postal correspondence that HMRC receive is scanned into their IT systems. (https://www.edmgroup.com/customer_story ... bound-mail)

With tax returns, they would use OCR systems to capture and process the return (see https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manual ... /sam127001). Enabling this, is one of the reasons why all correspondence now goes to a handful of HMRC locations

[JonE]

... all correspondence now goes to a handful of HMRC locations

They use non-geographic 'BXn' post codes for this - a bit like using 0345 phone numbers. Some banks are also users of BX postcodes.

Non-residents have to submit paper returns - on-line is not available.

Some have found that the postal service in their country of residence verifies a UK postcode before accepting an item over the counter for delivery. It seemed that some checks have been against a version of the postcode address file which allows 2-way checking (from postcode to street address and from street address to postcode) but does not include postcodes without a street address (such as HMRC's virtual postcodes) - or else the checks were against old PAF versions not updated for non-geographic codes. I haven't heard recent reports of this so non-geographic codes may now be accepted as valid in all cases.

Cheers!

[scrumpyjack]

I find it only marginally inconvenient to do my returns on paper, and keep all communications on paper. That won't change unless HMRC bans paper, which I doubt it will.

With the digital record keeping requirements for the VAT aspect of Making Tax Digital that have already been introduced they have effectively banned paper records, so why would would you think other taxes are immune to change.

There is a difference between requiring businesses to do things digitally, and requiring individual taxpayers to do so for their personal tax returns.
Demanding that every geriatric granny and grandpa has to use a computer would be a no no politically.

It is more likely that for personal taxpayers the aim will be for as much information as possible to be captured at source so that the taxpayers return can be automatically generated or indeed move to the point where the individual taxpayer does not need to make a return as HMRC have all the data already.

[Lootman]

I find it only marginally inconvenient to do my returns on paper, and keep all communications on paper. That won't change unless HMRC bans paper, which I doubt it will.

With the digital record keeping requirements for the VAT aspect of Making Tax Digital that have already been introduced they have effectively banned paper records, so why would would you think other taxes are immune to change.

There is a difference between requiring businesses to do things digitally, and requiring individual taxpayers to do so for their personal tax returns.
Demanding that every geriatric granny and grandpa has to use a computer would be a no no politically.

It is more likely that for personal taxpayers the aim will be for as much information as possible to be captured at source so that the taxpayers return can be automatically generated or indeed move to the point where the individual taxpayer does not need to make a return as HMRC have all the data already.

Yes, it's not a good look for HMRC compelling 90 year old's to use a computer to submit returns. Maybe an exemption for the over 65's?

JonE makes an interesting point that non-resident taxpayers won't have to submit electronically. That makes sense since there is no way to compel them anyway, and HMRC does want to encourage them to submit.

That said, it's been getting harder to do paper returns. 10 or 12 years ago I would go to my local HMRC office, pick up some paper forms, fill them in by ink, and post them. Then those offices stopped stocking the forms and told me to print them from their website. Then those regional offices closed. So now I get my accountant to prepare my return on paper and then he posts it to me. I sign it and post it in with my cheque. Ponderous but at least it still works.

Regarding the scanning of paper documents, sure that likely happens. But that is not the same as actually having the data stored and easily available for data mining.

[PinkDalek]

... That said, it's been getting harder to do paper returns. 10 or 12 years ago I would go to my local HMRC office, pick up some paper forms, fill them in by ink, and post them. Then those offices stopped stocking the forms and told me to print them from their website. Then those regional offices closed. ...

I receive my hard copy Tax Returns in the post, without needing to request them.

If Supplementary pages are required, up to 2015-16 Page TR 2 of the SA100s included:

If you need more pages ...

If ‘Yes’, you can go to http://www.gov.uk/self-assessment-forms-and-helpsheets to download them, or phone 0300 200 3610 and ask us for the relevant pages.

From https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/503309/sa100_2016.pdf

That telephone number still functions.

[seagles]

Yes, it's not a good look for HMRC compelling 90 year old's to use a computer to submit returns. Maybe an exemption for the over 65's?

Ageist!!! I am over 65 and have been doing on-line tax returns for many years. I was one of the original "guinea pigs" when they first started. Despite HMRC on a number of occasions telling me I no longer needed to complete one have continued as, IMO, rarely does a year go by that my "paid" tax is correct. However, I do agree about allowing paper returns being allowed.
We have a similar problem at the Gym, they have switched the time you can book classes to 22:00, but the reception phones shut prior to 21:00. So it has upset many of our more senior (I count myself in that group) as they can no longer get places.

[Nocton]

Yes, I agree with seagles. I am getting close to 80 and also an early user of the HMRC's on-line system. Let's get rid of these ageist comments that imply that anyone over 65, or whatever threshold you choose - usually at least 10 years older than the speaker, has completely lost competence and needs help for everything. I know this is how politicians talk, and the "elderly" are always brought into play when someone does not want to do something or approve of it, but in my experience the real world is not like that and there are plenty of 'incompetents' (in the proper not pejorative sense of the word) of all ages.
In fact on-line is particularly better for the elderly as the system checks and guides you to fill in the form correctly and you don't need to deal with pages of stuff that you don't actually need as the initial check list makes sure that only the pages you need are selected. I think that anyone who needs to fill in an annual tax return will have sufficient money that they have learnt how to manage their money affairs over their life or they employ an accountant. Either way it has little to do with age, unless one is really feeble.
This whole discussion seems to be feeding a paranoia about government. This is the UK not China! Everyone is free to continue to use paper instead of digital, just as everyone is free to ride a horse instead of driving a car, but the world will move on nevertheless.