Be warned there is a nasty fraud going on whereby agents' online details are being highjacked, and tax refunds diverted.
"There is no reason to believe that the users' security details that have been used fraudulently were obtained from HMRC."
As per an HMRC statement quoted on Accounting Web
Given the security risks, is compulsory online filing such a good idea?
Tax does have to be taxing.
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Logins and passwords are always the achilles heel of an online service - it's the same for banks. But if the user protects them, it's a very good system.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you really think is safer, Ken? Having data encrypted and send across a secure connection, or popping a piece of paper in a post box to be handled by numerous unknown people en route and possibly lost?
Think you need to have some perspective rather than smash the spinning jenny here.
I use paper and post.
ReplyDelete"Under its previous management team, HMRC became the gold standard for data loss and shoddy systems, and there are still years of work ahead to put those problems straight.
Some of the issues are ridiculously simple - an accountant friend informs me that if a company submits an online tax return that shows a refund owing from HMRC, the system issues a receipt for the return then promptly ditches the record because it can't recognise the 'negative' balance. Any queries to HMRC result in an assertion that the tax return was never submitted in the first place, despite the issued receipt."
http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/the-data-trust-blog/2009/08/a-week-when-databases-go-bad.html
If the post is so riddled with problems, why are passwords sent by HMRC through the post?
A plus side of an insecure system is that if HMRC comes along and asks why we didn't declare some untaxed income or BIK we can insist we did but some nasty Estonian cyber fraudsters deleted it for their own devious purposes.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should not shout too loudly or the government will insist we all have iris and fingerprint recognition sensor attached to our keyboards. For our own protection obviously.