We’ve previously explained some changes to Corporation Tax this year, one of which was compulsory online filing by iXbrl.
This has not been a smooth process across the profession as a whole – anecdotally we seem the have fared about the same as other firms, with our software providers struggling to meet specifications, and then quite a lot of teething troubles between the HMRC gateways and ourselves. We appear to be getting on top of this, but we do have a backlog of filing to catch up on.
On the grapevine we hear a number of accountants are charging their clients explicitly for iRbxl filing, sometimes up to £1,000. We are pleased to say that, at the moment, we have no plans to do this, however the general “overhead” of iRbxl will have to be reflected in periodic fee reviews which, as always, we try to keep realistic. Alas initiatives like iRbxl save a lot of time and money for Government departments, but simply create work and cost for the users having to comply.
On a similar Corporation Tax topic, HMRC have announced that they will not be able to accept Corporation Tax returns for financial years ending after 1 April 2011 till this autumn, as they have issues over software upgrades.
Of course, if you are HMRC and you have software issues, you can just change the timetables. The rest of us can’t!