HMRC Tax Forum

[Lootman]

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 don't think anyone was saying that, but rather there is a correlation between age and not being computer-savvy.

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.

As long as there is always a paper option and no compulsion to go online, then I think everyone will be happy.

[Charlottesquare]

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 don't think anyone was saying that, but rather there is a correlation between age and not being computer-savvy.

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.

As long as there is always a paper option and no compulsion to go online, then I think everyone will be happy.

But there will not be a paper option and in addition you will under MTD need to do multiple returns each year, a taxpayer with say rental income will be submitting 4 quarterly returns re the rental business, 4 quarterly returns for his/her other income/reliefs (one each quarter), then a correcting return for each and then a final overall verification return- so 11 submissions a year.

Re MTD and vat it is not merely typing the boxes into the online return, we have been doing that for years, it is the need for the accounting record of each individual sale and purchase to be kept in electronic form and the totals of these figures to auto link (no totaling a figure part way through the process and typing it in another box) through to the software used in the submission.

They seem to believe (wrongly) that somehow using this software will reduce error (just wait on all the idiots entering the same purchase invoice for vat and claiming vat also from the payment), as if somehow no errors will arise in such a scenario.

We will just need to wait until mapping errors in excel become endemic and its use in the process will then likely becomes curtailed

Any decent accountant knows **** in **** out, and that none off this solves anything, it just forces people who maybe for 20-30 years kept good manual accounts to possibly keep poor records on computer and kids others that an app and a phone and who needs an accountant.

Then we will have the brigade (I do not need an accountant) who believe it must all be be correct as the trial balance balances, they do not know what a bank reconciliation is but never mind, all you do is take photos of your receipts and bobs your uncle.

I am now out, my practice wound up, I have kept on some bigger clients who now employ me in house and will leave the chaos to a younger generation- the cynic in me thinks that HMRC believes that with so many DIY unrepresented taxpayers arising from all this they will really make hay, maybe I ought to offer my services to HMRC helping herding the lambs to the slaughter- fines galore.

[stockton]

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.

My experience is that on-line filing has repeated technical problems and takes far longer than filling a paper form. It usually requires at least some correspondence with HMRC simply to get logged-in.

[genou]

My experience is that on-line filing has repeated technical problems and takes far longer than filling a paper form. It usually requires at least some correspondence with HMRC simply to get logged-in.

And I have spent a number of years submitting personal and trust returns for the family with no issues at all, and online wipes the floor with paper. The value of your ( and my ) anecdote is zero. I'm not aware that HMRC have provided any data, but I would predict that the checking on online forms eliminates a lot of trivial errors that paper forms contain.

[BobGe]

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.

Making Tax Digital is a little wider in scope than an individual's personal tax return.

[BobGe]

Start looking forward to making tax digital,...
....the thinking that somehow this step will result in better records is a nonsense,...

If only that was what it was about...

[Charlottesquare]

My experience is that on-line filing has repeated technical problems and takes far longer than filling a paper form. It usually requires at least some correspondence with HMRC simply to get logged-in.

And I have spent a number of years submitting personal and trust returns for the family with no issues at all, and online wipes the floor with paper. The value of your ( and my ) anecdote is zero. I'm not aware that HMRC have provided any data, but I would predict that the checking on online forms eliminates a lot of trivial errors that paper forms contain.

Maybe, but completing forms by typing into the boxes and the forms then are electronically submitted is somewhat different to linking to all of your individual transactions so that there is an untouched by human hand connection from prime entry in your books and records to the submission to HMRC of the return, and that is the direction of travel.

The eventual destination is I suspect submitting the data of all individual transactions making up your accounts or in effect one giant ledger (which is where I think accountancy is actually heading) so my sales invoice to you automatically is your purchase invoice from me etc with "Big Brother" having access to the transactions in real time and his AI bots reviewing it all in real time. In effect the financial equivalent of a camera on every street and in every home, very 1984.

[stockton]

And I have spent a number of years submitting personal and trust returns for the family with no issues at all, and online wipes the floor with paper. The value of your ( and my ) anecdote is zero.

It rather depends upon who becomes aware of the anecdote. I have in the past been told that my personal experience had had a not insignificant effect on tax policy.

[Nocton]

The eventual destination is I suspect submitting the data of all individual transactions making up your accounts or in effect one giant ledger (which is where I think accountancy is actually heading) so my sales invoice to you automatically is your purchase invoice from me etc with "Big Brother" having access to the transactions in real time and his AI bots reviewing it all in real time. In effect the financial equivalent of a camera on every street and in every home, very 1984.

What exactly is it you have got to hide, Charlottesquare? We are only talking about numbers and balancing the books - one man's sale is always another man's purchase - unless of course, there's an unrecorded cash transaction ...
All these new, and much more efficient, systems are doing is eliminating the black market; which is surely desirable for all law-abiding citizens.

[Charlottesquare]

The eventual destination is I suspect submitting the data of all individual transactions making up your accounts or in effect one giant ledger (which is where I think accountancy is actually heading) so my sales invoice to you automatically is your purchase invoice from me etc with "Big Brother" having access to the transactions in real time and his AI bots reviewing it all in real time. In effect the financial equivalent of a camera on every street and in every home, very 1984.

What exactly is it you have got to hide, Charlottesquare? We are only talking about numbers and balancing the books - one man's sale is always another man's purchase - unless of course, there's an unrecorded cash transaction ...
All these new, and much more efficient, systems are doing is eliminating the black market; which is surely desirable for all law-abiding citizens.

I have nothing to hide but am not over keen on the state knowing where all my assets, or in the past my client's assets, are at any point in time- suppose HMRC raise a spurious investigation and have powers during same to freeze all my assets whilst it progresses for the next say 3-4 years, are you happy giving them that power, because that is the power you would possibly grant. (And with the old Special Compliance Unit I have certainly at first hand seen properties inhibited during enquiries)

Maybe it is a generation thing but no, I am not happy granting wholesale powers and information to any state, I would also not trust them to keep such data safe.