Chancellor Osborne announced in the Budget 2015 speech that the annual tax return will be phased out within five years.
The theory being that HMRC will instead collate the tax affairs of taxpayers from employers, banks, investment firms and other third parties into a single, digital tax account. For businesses, HMRC and Companies House will be streamlining the process to register a new company and sign up for taxes by May 2017.
In addition, the government will consult on a new payment process to enable tax and NICs to be collected through digital accounts instead of self-assessment.
By early 2016, all of the UK’s 5m small businesses and the first 10m individuals will have access to their own digital tax account.
The Chancellor said the move will reduce the time it takes to deal with HMRC from an average 40 minutes a year to 10 minutes. The changes will mean receipts and documents won't have to be collected by taxpayers throughout the year.
David Gauke is quoted by AccountingWeb saying that this is one of the "biggest ever changes to the way that people manage and pay their taxes".
Maybe so, but the key question is will it work and what about those with negligible access to the internet?
Views and comments welcome!
Tax does have to be taxing.
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I'm furious Ken, this was my idea, I suggested it three years ago in a meeting with a manager of the Enquiry Centres who came to visit us. Whether or not they still came up with the account idea off their own backs I know I said "why doesn't everyone have their own account like a bank account that they can access when they like".
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't have put it past the promotion hungry manager of f2f to have taken it away and used it to further his own rise up HMRC
When this is introduced remember it was a lowly AA who first suggested this back in 2011 not George Osborne, Ruth Owen, Lin Homer or whoever.
They can have the credit for abolishing the tax return I never suggested that but that has only been done to take away the need for a f2f NES adviser as tax credits is going to Universal Credit, SA will in effect disappear the only thing left will be PAYE and that was always a phone help thing anyway so expect the NES which replaced Enquiry Centres to be gone when SA tax returns are withdrawn.
Sorry to burst your bubble but ideas about online account & all this digital bollocks have been floating around HMRC for far longer than 3 years..... However your more than likely to be correct about the NES service!
DeleteEveryone will get a blank piece of paper from HMRC headed 1 What do you earn? 2 Send it (Digitally of course)
ReplyDeleteThey'll be getting fack all from me!
ReplyDeleteSooooooooooo brave..................
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