Oh no - not another SA question!!!!!

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

I am getting too jaded for this. Same every year.

I don't understand why if you don't know how to complete it you leave it to the last minute to ask.

How many will there be today, tomorrow and Sunday?

I see some fines coming on for some

 

[Beliky]

Oops :redface:

 

[MikeJ]

I've actually found it much easier than previous years. I can get copies of tax certificates online from banks and building societies.

Still owed the buggers £700, mind.

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

I've actually found it much easier than previous years. I can get copies of tax certificates online from banks and building societies.

Still owed the buggers £700, mind.

you must have filled it in wrong

 

[Tom McClelland]

I've actually found it much easier than previous years. I can get copies of tax certificates online from banks and building societies.

When I did mine (a couple of months ago ) I was startled to discover that I can no longer find where the tax certificates are online for my personal account. I am sure that they were there for the last few years but this year they didn't seem to be anywhere in the portal.

So I had to go digging through the Dark Satanic Mine that is my filing cabinet.

Re Elaine's original comment I guess it is just human nature to put off unpleasant tasks. I'm numerate and au fait with what is required but there've still been years when I was going round to the local tax offices and handing the return over the counter on the 31st Jan, or going to the post office and sending them Spec Deliv on the 30th. There is something about the whole process of doing the SA return that just sets my teeth on edge, so it gets deferred.

I wouldn't dream of dumping it on an accountant this late, though.

 

[yorkshirejames]

Re Elaine's original comment I guess it is just human nature to put off unpleasant tasks. I'm numerate and au fait with what is required but there've still been years when I was going round to the local tax offices and handing the return over the counter on the 31st Jan, or going to the post office and sending them Spec Deliv on the 30th. There is something about the whole process of doing the SA return that just sets my teeth on edge, so it gets deferred.

I wouldn't dream of dumping it on an accountant this late, though.

I'm doing my own one tomorrow afternoon with some chocolates.

 

[Jenni384]

chocolates.

I'll PM you my address to send them to. Thanks.

 

[MikeJ]

you must have filled it in wrong

First time I did it, they owed me £3.4k. I was convinced I'd not got share dividends that year.

 

[KM-Tiger]

So I had to go digging through the Dark Satanic Mine that is my filing cabinet.

It's gathering the information for the odd bits that's hard.

Each year I start a folder to put things like share dividends and bank interest into, but somehow when I need the contents there is still a vital piece missing.

Anyway, let's look forward to all the questions on May 18th!

 

[Tom McClelland]

It's gathering the information for the odd bits that's hard.

Each year I start a folder to put things like share dividends and bank interest into, but somehow when I need the contents there is still a vital piece missing.

Anyway, let's look forward to all the questions on May 18th!

Exactly so. There is always at least one thing missing.

The other part of the process that annoys me is when you get to the end and you submit the return, and the HMRC portal reminds you that you have to do a payment, and it would be really convenient to do it then and there, but the HMRC portal doesn't tell you exactly what you owe right now, taking into account all the payments that you've already given them. HMRC has this information because if you pick up the phone they tell you straight away, but they don't show it on the online form.

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

taking into account all the payments that you've already given them. HMRC has this information because if you pick up the phone they tell you straight away, but they don't show it on the online form.

You have to fill those in yourself on the return!

And then it would work it out.

 

[BusinessIdeas]

Exactly so. There is always at least one thing missing.

The other part of the process that annoys me is when you get to the end and you submit the return, and the HMRC portal reminds you that you have to do a payment, and it would be really convenient to do it then and there, but the HMRC portal doesn't tell you exactly what you owe right now, taking into account all the payments that you've already given them. HMRC has this information because if you pick up the phone they tell you straight away, but they don't show it on the online form.

I can identify strongly with this, if they have all the records of payments on account that you have made, why on earth cant they deduct it and show you what you really owe? - Very frustrating

 

[Tom McClelland]

You have to fill those in yourself on the return!

And then it would work it out.

Yes I know. But those questions are ones that they already know the answers to, and are ones that I can't answer nearly so easily.

 

[BusinessIdeas]

You have to fill those in yourself on the return!

And then it would work it out.

Never found the provision on the form for this (online) and I really looked :|

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

Yes I know. But those questions are ones that they already know the answers to, and are ones that I can't answer nearly so easily.

But we are talking about HMRC.

They already know your paye - your employer told them that by 19 May 2009!

They already know your divs - they were on your limited co accounts.

They know the tax paid on the div and bank account interest.

They know your benefits in kind - on your P11D

They know you NI number, your date of birth, your status.

Shall I bore you more

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

I use software - so not sure about the HMRC on line portal.

Look in the section tax calculation summary - box A 245

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

This year I shocked myself, not only did I get them all done early, but I actually submitted it early! Up till last year I was a definite start the tax returns on the 29th January type of person, and hand deliver them to the tax office at 7pm on 31st January (did you know they stayed open on Sunday evenings??)

last year I did the tax returns mid January, but still held off actually submitting them until 31st Jan. It's just my pointless little bit of rebellion.

This year, however, all done and submitted before Christmas, and I have to admit, is quite nice sitting back and watching everyone else panic!!

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

I love taxcalc. Switched one year to ftax and would rather stick my head in a gas oven than ever use that again. TaxCalc is truely the best package i've ever used for anyone doing their own returns - well worth the money.

 

[Jenni384]

Never found the provision on the form for this (online) and I really looked :|

On our third party software there's a box towards the end of the main return saying "payments already made towards your 2008-09 payments on account".

HMRC's own product is hideous and I've not looked at it in years so I'm afraid I don't know where it is but as it's a flow-chart type questionnairre thing (or used to be) then surely the question is asked somewhere in the process? :| You'd have thought... but then it is HMRC.

True story, I met a guy who worked on designing the HMRC computer system. He saw me about to turn on him, held his hands up and said "I know, it's s**t! But a decent system would have cost £50M and they only paid £5M - they're lucky it works at all."

So there you go, you get what you pay for, apparently

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

True story, I met a guy who worked on designing the HMRC computer system. He saw me about to turn on him, held his hands up and said "I know, it's s**t! But a decent system would have cost £50M and they only paid £5M - they're lucky it works at all."

So there you go, you get what you pay for, apparently

Why would it cost then £50m?

Surely it would be cheaper for them to sack the IT dept and just select a third party solution to use.

I bet the 3rd parties didn't spend £50m or £5m come to that.

Bloody waste of money if you ask me -- hold on whilst I climb onto my soap box

 

[Jenni384]

that wouldn't have us lot complaining about it.

Who am I kidding? We'd find something!!

 

[Beadons]

Although I haven't asked a SA question, I have spent the last few days busy trawling through all the questions asked and still haven't filed my Self Assessment but think I'm nearly there.

The reason for my late submission - well, I had sent my Accountant numerous emails since the 11th January wanting to know if he needed any more information. To be honest, I was getting really annoyed that he wasn't responding, but he never did answer straight away.

Well, this time last week I was reading through my local paper when I saw in the Obituary column that it was his funeral the following Monday.

I have gone from thinking all my tax affairs were in order to being like a headless chicken

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

Well at least he had a good excuse for not getting back to you

 

[MikeJ]

Bet he still manages to invoice you

 

[Philip Hoyle]

True story, I met a guy who worked on designing the HMRC computer system. He saw me about to turn on him, held his hands up and said "I know, it's s**t! But a decent system would have cost £50M and they only paid £5M - they're lucky it works at all."

So there you go, you get what you pay for, apparently

Typical attitude of the entire public sector, their quangos and hangers-on. It's always a shortage of money that causes everything, couldn't possibly be useless beggars doing the work!

It would be interesting to know how much the likes of the banks, e-tailers (argos, amazon, ebay etc) spend on their websites - i.e. websites that work 24:7, where errors are fixed, that are actually useable and where security and confidentiality is maintained without jumping through ridiculous illogical hoops. Perhaps the Govt should starting employing staff who've previously been employed by the successful private sector firms whose future depends on working IT systems?

As an example of poor programming - when registering for an online service (I forget which), it asks for postcode and gives the example format as AB1 2CD but unless you enter it as AB12CD you get an error message - what plonker wrote the program like that and why has it still be left uncorrected after several months when everyone knows the problem exists? Another issue is why they don't let you put £ and % in the white space of a tax return - DOH, Hello, its a tax return, monetary values and percentages are quite likely to be needed in their "further information" boxes - you really couldn't make it up. These kind of schoolboy errors are nothing to do with money - it's just sheer incompetence, it wouldn't cost a penny more to have got them right the first time!

 

[Tom McClelland]

On our third party software there's a box towards the end of the main return saying "payments already made towards your 2008-09 payments on account".

HMRC's own product is hideous and I've not looked at it in years so I'm afraid I don't know where it is but as it's a flow-chart type questionnairre thing (or used to be) then surely the question is asked somewhere in the process? :| You'd have thought... but then it is HMRC.

True story, I met a guy who worked on designing the HMRC computer system. He saw me about to turn on him, held his hands up and said "I know, it's s**t! But a decent system would have cost £50M and they only paid £5M - they're lucky it works at all."

So there you go, you get what you pay for, apparently

I'm going to call "Balderdash!" on what the guy said.

HMRC pays bazillions and in some cases gets good stuff and in other cases horsepoop.

I've been involved in a government IT projects where £50million was spent doing the work very badly when £5million paid to the correct people would have resulted in a great system.

How do I know this? I was on the team that replaced HMG's first effort at a particular project, that they'd already spent £50million on trying to do it themselves through consultants, with a far better system (the actual users and managers agreed) for which we charged them £5million.

 

[Geoff T]

Shall I bore you more...

I'm good - thanks

Bloody waste of money if you ask me -- hold on whilst I climb onto my soap box...

Want a hand? (ever the gent - that's me!)

Who am I kidding? We'd find something!!...

so.. how is that "PRT" (Pre Return Tension) working out for you all?

[runs for the flaming door!]

Feel free to get some payback beanies - not registering to the thread... "let it all go, you know you'll feel better for it!"


See that dust? That's me that was.......

 

[Jenni384]

Fair enough! I'm only repeating what I was told

I might have to go back to him to find out exactly what bit he was working on etc...

 

[Tom McClelland]

Fair enough! I'm only repeating what I was told

I might have to go back to him to find out exactly what bit he was working on etc...

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't getting at you. And the guy who spoke to you may have been expressing an honestly held belief.

But I've been involved in a few government IT projects and the notion that there is the slightest positive correlation between money spent and the quality of the output I find quite amusing. Generally the reverse applies; the more government money that is available to fund a particular project the more likely it is that all of that money will be wasted.

Once a project gets above a certain size it acquires (spending) momentum of its own yet no individual is really accountable for its success or failure. A recipe for waste and confusion about what the project is really trying to achieve.

 

[Jenni384]

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't getting at you. And the guy who spoke to you may have been expressing an honestly held belief.

But I've been involved in a few government IT projects and the notion that there is the slightest positive correlation between money spent and the quality of the output I find quite amusing. Generally the reverse applies; the more government money that is available to fund a particular project the more likely it is that all of that money will be wasted.

Once a project gets above a certain size it acquires (spending) momentum of its own yet no individual is really accountable for its success or failure. A recipe for waste and confusion about what the project is really trying to achieve.

I know you weren't

It's interesting to hear your experience, thank you.

Mostly I don't believe the govt are good at getting anything right. If I assume that, I'm never disappointed!

 

[yorkshirejames]

As an example of poor programming - when registering for an online service (I forget which), it asks for postcode and gives the example format as AB1 2CD but unless you enter it as AB12CD you get an error message - what plonker wrote the program like that and why has it still be left uncorrected after several months when everyone knows the problem exists? Another issue is why they don't let you put £ and % in the white space of a tax return - DOH, Hello, its a tax return, monetary values and percentages are quite likely to be needed in their "further information" boxes - you really couldn't make it up. These kind of schoolboy errors are nothing to do with money - it's just sheer incompetence, it wouldn't cost a penny more to have got them right the first time!

The one that really hacks me off is there is a box in the tax return for something that 99% of people don't have, so I put a zero in the box (my own logic being that it is better to decisively enter a zero than to leave blank which may suggest you have missed the question). Answer "box cannot be zero either leave blank or type a number".

Aaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhh.

Re the deceased accountant. Death is no excuse. All professional accountants are required to have contingency agreements in place for when things like this happen. There is/should be another accountant known to him who will take his files over. What an inconvenient time to go though. Could have waited until early February.

 

[David Griffiths]

The one that really hacks me off is there is a box i . . . "box cannot be zero either leave blank or type a number".

Aaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhh.

.

Have you ever tried filling in a form on the FSA website? There just aren't enough a's, r's g's and h's to adequately describe it.

For a start it only works in Internet Explorer, so anybody using Firefox, Chrome, Opera etc has to change. Some boxes must have zeros, others don't, and there's nothing to tell you which.

Any further description would stray from the above letters on to four different ones.

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

Perhaps the Govt should starting employing staff who've previously been employed by the successful private sector firms whose future depends on working IT systems?

They did with PPP and look where that got them.

Any Gov project - add several £,000s to the total.

Licence to print money

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

I'm good - thanks



Want a hand? (ever the gent - that's me!)



so.. how is that "PRT" (Pre Return Tension) working out for you all?

[runs for the flaming door!]

Feel free to get some payback beanies - not registering to the thread... "let it all go, you know you'll feel better for it!"


See that dust? That's me that was.......

I heard a noise - thought someone was there but obviously not

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

Re the deceased accountant. Death is no excuse. All professional accountants are required to have contingency agreements in place for when things like this happen. There is/should be another accountant known to him who will take his files over. What an inconvenient time to go though. Could have waited until early February.

See I don't get that. If I am dead how can I put fire up my contingency plan :redface:

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

A couple of late ones on here - who will get the prize for the one submitted at the wire?

 

[SarahCollins]

Not me!!

I'm all done!

And my New Year's resolution is to have my 09/10 taxes filed in April this year.

 

[Tej]

A couple of late ones on here - who will get the prize for the one submitted at the wire?

Wonder how many will own up to not being able to get on the HMRC website... and thus incurred fines

Moral of the story.. get an accountant... no unneccessary grief... no heartburn etc.

( PS: I am not an accountant)

 

[Beadons]

See I don't get that. If I am dead how can I put fire up my contingency plan :redface:

In the case of my poor accountant, I believe he was only in his early 50's and certainly looked in the best of health last time I saw him. There are many apparently healthy teenagers who sadly drop dead, so I think I do forgive him (slightly) for not having a contingency plan

 

[yorkshirejames]

In the case of my poor accountant, I believe he was only in his early 50's and certainly looked in the best of health last time I saw him. There are many apparently healthy teenagers who sadly drop dead, so I think I do forgive him (slightly) for not having a contingency plan

Being serious for a minute (and this is a point for the accountants on here) - this is certainly a requirement of my professional body (CIMA) and I'm sure the other bodies have a similar rule.