Advisers do not trust the government’s systems to file complex tax returns online, it has emerged, as the self-assessment filing deadline falls today.
The ‘attachments’ system, which enables taxpayers with complex returns to add extra detail, has failed to earn tax advisers’ confidence, who are waiting to see how it holds up before using the system for filing.
The latest figures for online filing indicate that the firms are still sending hard copy attachments to the taxman to supplement online tax returns, despite the introduction of an online system. Only 70,000 of the three million online filings returned a week before today’s self assessment deadline contained extra electronic documents.
In the past around 25% of tax returns in general have been accompanied by paper attachments. Extrapolating the figure onto online returns, tax experts said there was the potential for up to one million electronic attachments to be sent. So far submissions have been well below that estimate despite advisers arguing strenuously for the ability to send in electronic documents.
Advisers believe sending more information made it less likely that HM Revenue & Customs would open an enquiry against clients.
The major firms had previously told Accountancy Age that they were only filing a few self assessment returns for clients via the internet.
Paul Aplin, chair of the ICAEW tax faculty, said he was surprised at the lack of online attachment filing. ‘It’s a very low figure. I’d expected it to be much higher as the profession has pushed for this for years,’ said Aplin.
‘I suspect the larger firms will want to make a lot of use of that facility [in future],’ he added.
S mith & Williamson head of tax Richard Mannion said his firm was ‘taking it slowly’ on filing attachments via the internet. ‘Let someone else be the guinea pig,’ he said. However, he added that filing attachments online was ‘the way forward’.
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