Revenue gets ahead of itself
Recent successes with selfassessment, which saw record numbers of online returns,may have gone to the heads of planners at the Inland Revenue.
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The tax collector has unintentionally been getting ahead of itself by sending out returns for the tax year 2003-04. The letter contains the instruction: ‘You have until 19 May 2004 to make your return…but you will probably wish to clear this matter up quickly and we would prefer you to send in the return now. This will allow any problems to be sorted out sooner.’
Such a return was received last week by Accountancy Age reader andchartered accountant John Myers.
Myers, of Manchester-based firm Haffner Hoff & Co, said:’Perhaps the Revenue expects us to be prophets?’
The problem arose due to a ‘systems failure’ at the Revenue, which according to a spokesperson, was noted on 27 January and ‘sorted out straight away’.
However, there was a two-week period where the returns were automatically sent out.
The spokesperson added: ‘The forms should have gone out after April [2003].They were loaded on the system early.’