HMRC's online filing system seems to have worked well this year, ie it didn't crash. Accounting Web report that:"HMRC benefited from the tendency of taxpayers to leave their tax returns until the last minute this year, as returns had to be made online to avoid a penalty for all but a handful of taxpayers. The number of taxpayers filing their returns online by 31 January this year jumped to 5.75 million – a 50 per cent increase on last year's figure, with 67% of all self assessment returns filed online by 31 January.
The peak filing day this year was Friday 30 January, with 390,000 returns filed in one day – up from the peak day last year of 185,000. If returns were filed round the clock on 30th this means HMRC were receiving 16,250 per hour; more likely, however, that the filing period ran for around 18 hours meaning that they coped with almost 22,000 returns an hour, or 361 per minute – that’s 6 every second!"
However, one correspondent has advised me that his experience was not so good; as the server wouldn't respond to his activation request, consequently preventing him from filing online by the deadline.
Has anyone else had any problems?
Tax does have to be taxing.
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Some of the frustrations there may amuse you/pile on the despair (delete as applicable).
Ditto for me - HMRC's system steadfastly refused to send me an activation code, preventing me from filing online (and no doubt soon to embroil me in a long, bloody and frustrating appeal against Nanny's "penalty").
ReplyDeleteAccording to the one person at HMRC's Helldesk who said anything other than "keep trying, peasant" there is a known problem if the Bastard-Taxpayer* has had the audacity to change address during the year.
No error messages, no dodgy codes, it just quietly doesn't work.
Come the revolution I shall delight in designing the online "www.please-don't-behead-me-I-was-just-following-orders.newgov.uk" system to mimick the same fault. ...
Sorry, guillotine says "Yes". If you don't like it then you can always appeal after we've dropped the blade.
* Technical terminology.
Sorry, don't you mean, "No cash".
ReplyDeleteThe system, complete with its systemic design failures works as planned, i.e. big companies pay no tax (Hartnett is highly efficient in the way he handles big business - we don't want anything to get in the way of any consultancy work when we retire do we?). Hartnett and his mates also get their dubious bonuses whatever the circumstances of their decision to leave (complete with million of £ of pensions courtesy of you and I).
All in all, the system is working fine if you are in the right place, which leaves no cash for the rest of us...