Revenue staff forced to re-key tax data
The Inland Revenue has suffered a further self-assessment e-filing embarrassment after it revealed its staff are having to print out and re-key customer information.
Revenue officials said information received online cannot yet be automatically transferred onto its own system, and as a result workers would have to endure the arduous process ‘for several weeks’.
But a Revenue spokeswoman denied the hiccup had damaged its intention of being at the head of the march towards e-government or would increase its backlog of returns. She said: ‘We planned to launch the system this way and a lot of e-businesses do when they start out.
‘However, the automatic system will be up and running before September when the tax return rush begins. The backlog is nothing we can’t deal with.’
The latest setbacks for the Revenue and its IT supplier EDS, comes just two weeks after getting the system off the ground.
Two weeks ago the Revenue admitted the site was not working properly.
It took taxpayers two hours to download software from the site before they could file a return. Instead registered users have been sent a free CD-ROM complete with Microsoft Taxsaver 2000 software.
EXCLUSIVE: Revenue reported to OFT