As per HMRC:
"The VAT Online service will be unavailable between 6am on Thursday 4 April and 6am on Saturday 6 April.
During this period you will not be able to register or deregister for VAT, or to make changes to your registration details, online. Neither will you be able to view your account, arrange a new Direct Debit, or submit a VAT Return.
HMRC apologises for any inconvenience this may cause.
HMRC strongly recommend that if you who need to submit a return by 7 April you do so before 4 April. If that is not possible you can of course submit your return when the system is back up on 6 April and 7 April.
You can make payments even while you are unable to access the VAT Online service. You should make sure that your payment clears to HMRC’s account by 7 April. Remember, this can take up to three working days.
If you pay by Direct Debit you must make sure that your return is submitted by 7 April so that payment can be collected on time.
You will not be penalised if your return or Direct Debit payment is late and this is due to HMRC systems being unavailable during the period before the 7 April due date.
If you try to submit your return before 7 April you should keep a record of any error messages you receive in case of difficulty."
Tax does have to be taxing.
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It would get kind of interesting if any of the other systems went down.
ReplyDeleteSomething happen around April 5th?
All systems are down between 3 and 9 April for end of year upgrade as always some systems will be available but at limited times.
ReplyDeleteHow does that work with RTI, a 7 day break?
DeleteFunnily, retailers like John Lewis have websites which as far as I know work virtually 365 days/year. Could HMRC not do the same?
ReplyDeleteYes, of course the main reason behind JIT (just in time), combine it with lean Processing and some good old Real Time info from the barcodes at POS (point of sale) through head office to keep the bean counters happy on an hourly basis, and through to warehouse and dispatch incorporating Total Logistics as a concept. Yes, these crazy japanese sumo rice cracker methods sometimes work when dealing with tangible items like stock.
ReplyDeleteHMRC however have not organised and project managed a decent IT system since it came out of Gordon Browns compost heap.