WRITTEN ON January 19th, 2009 BY Ruth Kennedy AND STORED IN Design: user-oriented, What do we want?
Oh no. How very disappointing.
I’m trying to help the government by completing my self assessment for 07-08 online. I’m trying to be good and early-ish (there’s 2 weeks to go and I am here, with all the paperwork, ready to log in to the Government Gateway using that remarkably unmemorable pin number.
BUT! I don’t have all the paperwork. I can’t find my P60 PAYE income summary anywhere. Rats! But I can’t be the only one – surely lots of people are simultaneously discovering their filing mishaps at exactly this moment in time? I ring HMRC. Various options to choose from. On hold for about 7 minutes. I thought maybe the nice person I spoke to could just read the information off the system (I only need the total earned and tax paid). But she can’t do that. I have to ring the right tax office (this obviously isn’t it), and they have to send the form to me. It’s not available online for me to access, alas. I phone the new number she gives me – a different tax office. On hold for 4.5 minutes (music more crackly though). Friendly person answers. Lots of security Qs (all of which could have been answered by someone who’d intercepted a piece of mail to me from HMRC and looked my phone number up in the phone book). Oh no! she can’t help because I’m now speaking to (another) wrong tax office (the tax office changed from Wales to Scotland when my employer changed). I ask how come nothing is joined up behind the scenes. and how come it’s not easier to get hold of the P60 info (given that lots of people must need it). The lady politely declines to comment (“I’m sorry, I can’t answer that because these calls are recorded”). So she gives me yet ANOTHER 0845 number to call. I call it. Identical list of options (Have I called the previous number by mistake? Nothing tells me I am calling the ‘local’ (Lothian) tax office that I know I need) I am on hold for what feels like forever, but it’s only about 6 minutes. Then the recorded message tells me they are suffering high call volume, implies that they have insufficient advisers to answer the calls, and abruptly tells me to try at another time, before cutting me off.
I am wondering when between now and the 31 Jan will be a better time to call. And when these set-piece, predictable, ‘touching the state’ experiences will feel effortless and less frustrating.
6 Responses to “*SIGH* The return of the annual tax return un-ideal government”
Worth noting that HMRC can rise to the occasion.
If you deal with the Corporation Tax people, they are very bright, very quick on the uptake and open to reasonable negotiation.
If you deal with the R&D claims people, it’s first name terms half way through the first phone call and they ring you to apologise if the cheque is sent out on Tuesday instead of Monday.
It’s a different story in PAYE. As you describe.
The story you tell is dismal.
Compare that with the true story of a man not a million miles away from myself who suffered a bit of identity theft – the banks/credit card companies acquitted themselves brilliantly.
IPS still like to pretend that their ID cards will prevent (sic) identity theft. Imagine that, one day, despite Sir James Crosby, they got their way and that IPS ID cards wormed their way into the nation’s payment systems.
Do you think the service would be as good as the banks’ and credit card companies’? Or better? Or more like PAYE? How long would it be before we were reduced to a barter economy?
I met an IT person at a party just after Christmas. (I am in confessional mood.) He works for HMRC. No names, no pack drill.
We were talking about the tax credits system. There are apparently 2,000 or so unique combinations of … things … that affect each claimant’s tax credit amount. And those things can change daily.
My interlocutor reckoned it would take between 6 and 8 weeks for each change to be processed through the system. And that’s with the bright sparks in the Treasury pressing the buttons. Translate those figures into IPS speak and … you’ll be begging for the return of the days when you only had to deal with PAYE.
A couple of ideas:
1. You could always ring up your previous employer and ask them for the P60 figures.
2. Or the Mail on Sunday. Remember, they had the source code for the UK Government Gateway for a while and some logon details. If your previous employer submitted their returns online, the MoS ought to be able to log on and get them for you. Everyone in Europe should know that.
Do a paper return BEFORE Sept 30th and just make up the figures. They compare them to the correct figures and correct any mistakes.
This is why the old paper forms were better. The fine was only for non-return, not non-completed in minute detail with numbers the government already has.
So the two years when the government tried it on me, I filled in as much as I could there and then but mailed it back a week before the dead line.
Never heard a thing back, so it must have been OK.
It is SO miserable.
I do feel that the moment of payment is the moment I most want to say (on a comps slip, for example) please DO NOT spend this money on
– wars (on anything)
– surveillance