[Closed] HMRC Website

Always fills me with dread. Works just fine or a headache. Seems to be no middle ground.

Its a test of patience to be sure. I dread it every year!

It's much easier if you do it in June - thousands of people who have forgotten their passwords smash the servers every January...

It's much easier if you do it in June

I know! I've been nagging for their P60 since the 6th April 👿

paper is your friend 🙂

DrJ - Member
paper is your friend

In October, maybe.

I thought they where doing away with paper ? The advantage with the online one is it does do the calc there and then for you, saves a mistake with the paper forms.

Self Assessment hasn't been GDS'd* yet, so is still a bit old school, but it's still not that bad.
I did MrsJ's self (sic) assessment this morning (as I do every year) and it took me the grand total of 24 minutes including paying for the tax owed.
Get organised and it's a doddle.

It will end up looking and operating like https://www.gov.uk/check-mot-status and other .gov sites that have been redeveloped under the guidance of the smug hipsters in Aviation house 😉

yes awful system and similar issues. I *think* but still not entirely sure there are 2 places you can login and it is not entirely clear. I gave up trying to follow the links on gov.uk (I mean how effing difficult is it to just let someone login?) and used google which seemed to find the right place.

If I recall, you have to have a government gateway account and wait for UTR, then you have to add a 'service' of self assessment. Then you have to wait for the activation code in the post. Then you have to login to gateway enter the activation code, and then you can go to the hrmc site and do your self assessment.

Mine showed as me owing tax (under £500) and said I'd be contacted by HMRC in 72hours, though I'm not confident I understood it right and whether I need to just pay it or not.

People who designed the user experience should be shot.

That Tax Service website looks like one of those fake copy-cat websites - beware!

recovering your password is in 2 parts - one half on screen, the second in an email - took me several goes to realise that 😳 .

type in the first and seconds parts to make the whole password - I did try copy and paste but that didn't work for me.

Probably easier to receive an EAM and the Launch Codes for a ICBM....

Regularly crashes on me when I'm submitting.

People who designed the user experience should be shot.

Is true

The worst bit is that the online sections don't correspond to the boxes on the paper form so you can't cross reference what you entered last year.

Well, I'm finally in and 15% through the return....

despite having the correct User ID and a newly generated password I keep getting the message "Incorrect User ID or Password"

I managed this yesterday despite having the passworkd and UID in front of me I think I mistook a o for an 0. Their login rules aren't findable but after some (not sure how many) failed logins it will lock the account (I think for two hours). Pretty sure if you try to log in before the 2 hours is up it resets (ie another two hours).

You get what you pay for as they say. It may get better in time but services will increasingly be digital and potentially privatised to the cheapest bidder. Concentrix springs to mind along with companies based offshore.

There is the option of throwing money at the problem -

Someone recommended http://l.gosimpletax.com/zen/ to me yesterday. £18 from the looks of it but supposedly much quicker and easier to use than the HMRC site and explains everything in plain English (the HMRC help section appears to be broken at the moment, helpfully)

Self Assessment hasn't been GDS'd* yet, so is still a bit old school, but it's still not that bad.

That was the only contribution I had to make..

*looks suspiciously in geoffj's direction*

Wonders if bearnecessities IS one of the [i]smug hipsters at Aviation house[/i]

😀

Nah, but they've stolen one of ours. *Strokes Kev's imaginary beard*

🙂

It's the worst thing in the world.

Try going between VAT, PAYE and TAX. It swaps between .gov and hmrc sites with gleeful abandon.

An absolute mess.

Logged in recently to do my VAT return. The website no longer lets your browser auto-fill the username and password, for security reasons. But then they tell you how to find the details stored in your browser.

Though I really dread losing the details, and having to wait a couple of weeks for them to post them to me again.

there's plenty going on at HMRC at the moment. the old SA system is being totally revamped over the coming years. it will be GDS'd soon (incidentally most of the front end changes are done in Newcastle these days...)

Isn't GDSING just huge fonts and lots of white space?

@geoff - why hasn't it been done yet? It's like a time machine back to 1998 - so much of the rest of gov.uk is really nice and easy to use.

it's just awful. half the boxes kick off if you leave them blank instead of putting a 0, and the other half kick off if you put a 0 instead of leaving them blank. The 'information' boxes don't explain or elaborate on anything, they just tell that this is a box where you should enter a number, if you have any idea what that number should be. And my wife got stuck in a loop this year where she couldn't reset her password because there was no user with that email, but she couldn't register because there was already a user with that email. It was one of the most Kafka-esque experiences I've had online 😆

(and i've done my own tax return through it enough times...)

I hate it because I owe it >£2k despite it telling me what I earned and what I paid in tax. If you know this $*** then why not tax me properly in the first place? And there were no surprises in there - no directorships, offshore trusts, pre-1936 married vicar's pension over-contributions, charitable disposable indexifiers, bikes-to-work. Just plain old PAYE. Bollox.

HMRC site been working fine for me filling our mine and the wife's returns. Bit clunky but not too bad.

I've got them completed and ready to submit but now I'm wondering whether http://l.gosimpletax.com/zen/ can save me at least the £25 cost of using it. Mmm.

17% through myself. It was 1% and I was losing the will to live until I filled out the rental income section and it jumped up. I only wish I had my P60s here with me. And my bank statements.

Ah well, something to look forward to tonight I guess

same as doosuk - I fill in mine (quite complex) plus wife's (pretty minuscule, usually a rebate) and my mum's (surprisingly complex also ) - wonder if I can trial for £18 and upgrade for all three later -- or £25 isn't too much if it's that easier..

ponders..

All three done for this year anyway, so it's a call to make after April.

You think its bad now:
[url= https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/413975/making-tax-easier.pdf ]click[/url]

A lot of small businesses will just give up!

@geoff - why hasn't it been done yet? It's like a time machine back to 1998 - so much of the rest of gov.uk is really nice and easy to use.

Dunno, but there is a lot going on at HMRC on this front.

Just finished my return - was more than I expected *bumpucker*, but then realised I'd already pre=paid half of it with my last return and an interim payment...

Still, do you think they'll be amenable to a Starbucks/Google type deal where I offer to pay about 0.3% of what I owe?

Interestingly, I've just had a spam SMS from 'HMRC':

You have a pending tax refund of 265.84GBP to claim please follow our secure link below.
Your bank may require extra verification.

www.ow.ly/tDfx307N6w4

There's loads of phishing emails purporting to be from HMRC but they're not so don't fall for those or indeed any spam etc. See [url= https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/genuine-hmrc-contact-and-recognising-phishing-emails/genuine-hmrc-contact-and-recognising-phishing-emails ]here for gov.uk advice [/url].

RE: Go Simple Tax website

After signing up for an account, you can fill out your tax return without paying anything. Looks like you only need to pay when you submit.

Just entered both mine and the wife's in less than 30mins. Offered one suggestion for each of us to lower the tax due but it wasn't relevant (but it is checking for known/common things you can claim for in your situation and points out if you haven't added it on your claim). It also has drop down lists of items your can claim so if you're unfamiliar with what you can potentially claim for it may help you.

For me it generated the same bill I've just paid via HMRC. The website is [b]so much easier to use than the HMRC[/b] one but I don't think I'll pay to use it next year...I was just interested as to whether it could save me paying any additional tax.

Has anyone else's RTI tools thing lost all their backup data ? This is a total nightmare...

Thanks for the feedback Dooos. I may take a look as I reckon I'll get my 18 quid back. Year on year I answer the questions the same, whereas re-phrased they may well get a different answer.

You said it cranked out the same figure as HMRC. Presumably so long as I don't press submit on the HMRC website, I'm free to prepare and submit via Go Simple Tax (and vice versa).

Has anyone else's RTI tools thing lost all their backup data ? This is a total nightmare...

This happend to me once. There should be directories on your system with backup folders in.

I will check tomorrow where they are.

A truly awful piece of software.