Accountancy Age exclusive: E-filing fiasco
The Inland Revenue has suffered further self-assessment e-filing embarrassment after admitting its site, launched this week, was not working properly.
As the Revenue unveiled its site – following two postponements and a three month delay – officials confirmed they had suffered technical problems which means it will take users two hours to download software from the site before they can file a return.
The latest setback to its much-vaunted internet filing website emerged as the Revenue should have been celebrating its launch on Monday.
A Revenue spokeswoman said due to technical difficulties, and subsequent problems with downloading time, users would now be sent a free CD-ROM complete with Microsoft Taxsaver 2000 software.
She said: ‘The site has so far not worked out in the way we would have liked. However, we are continually working on e-filing and are confident of lowering the download time. At present two hours is too long and so we are providing free CD-ROMS as an alternative.’
Revenue officials remain confident the site will be a success despite the initial glitch. ‘We are expecting a large initial interest and have over 50,000 people already registered,’ the Revenue spokeswoman added.
It was hoped the site would be launched in April and allow taxpayers to file over the internet without the need for further components. But Revenue software provider EDS was not satisfied with security aspects of the site and asked for further testing time.