end of year tax return

silvercar

I have been trying to finish off my 2012-13 tax year for my company, trying to submit to hmrc online via their own basic tools package and am continually getting the message that the submission has failed as the server is busy.:mad:

I would have thought that hmrc would increase capacity at this time.

RTI now requires that you submit pay details before you can make payments. You cannot submit RTI for 2013-14 until you have completed 2012-13. So anyone who has a payday early in the month may end up with severe problems.:mad:

Davide123

Some online services are down, check hmrc website for which services affected

patanne

I know of one employee being changed to monthly paid (still in cash) because of this as the wages are normally done several weeks in advance and actually paid when due. He can't be the only one as I expect the system to crash as soon as it starts to be used! I hope there is some form of testing available to users but that would entail some common sense being applied!

silvercar

Davide123 wrote: »

Some online services are down, check hmrc website for which services affected

They were down until 11pm last night; since then they have been "busy".

jimmo

According to another poster the computers are down until Tuesday.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4533355

This tends to happen at the turn of the tax year.

silvercar

Thursday 4 April 23:00 – Saturday 6 April 06:00

Due to a scheduled upgrade you will be unable to access HMRC Online Returns & Forms between 23:00 Thursday 4 April and 06:00 on Saturday 6 April. If you use Basic PAYE Tools or commercial software you will still be able to submit your returns for PAYE End of Year, In-Year, Expenses and Benefits, however you will experience a delay in receiving your online acknowledgement.

Should still be able to submit!

nomunnofun

silvercar wrote: »

Should still be able to submit!

There is an additional problem this year in that those paid today who are weekly are on week 53 - hmrc has told me that no end if year submissions should be made until tomorrow - seems odd - never known that before!

jayencee

I feel your frustration, I've been trying all day to send our end of year stuff to no avail, keep getting the message that the servers are busy. Can't start this week's payroll until it's gone! Had the same problem last year.

chrismac1

This is normal. Only in the wacky world of HMRC can they get away with making online submissions compulsory and continue to have this crappy 3 days' of downtime business.

I do NOT attempt to file anything until the database has stabilised and definitely up and running except where - as in the case of a VAT return yesterday due on 7th - you need to beat a deadline.

The reason for this is that if you are unlucky your "submission" goes into the ether. It looks as if it has submitted, you get a confirmation, but in reality it has gone into some pie in the sky piece of the HMRC database. In the case of payroll, this becomes apparent in September when you get a £400 fine.

OK, you can soon get yourself off the fine by showing it was HMRC incompetence and inadequacy which caused the problem. But it takes a few letters. Why even go there when you can just wait a few days.

In this case, there are strikes planned on Monday because HMRC staff don't live in the real world and don't think recessions should apply to them. So I won't be pressing any buttons until Tuesday morning or later.

jayencee

So are you saying it's not worth trying to submit until Wednesday, when presumably everybody who has been trying to submit over the past few days will then try again, clogging up the servers once more?

I run our payroll on a Monday or Tuesday (depends on whether there was any weekend working) so that I know what amounts to arrange to leave the company bank account on a Wednesday to hit the employees banks by Friday (not all of them do faster payments). So I've now got to wait unti Wednesday to submit this year's year end (don't know why they give a 19th May deadline when in fact you have to close down one year before you can start the next), and then download the new stuff from HMRC for RTR (which is never easy in my experience) then get to grips with it before actually doing anything. Thought I'd got it sorted this year - with the year end falling over a weekend, I would have plenty of time to familiarise myself! Seems not.

chrismac1

I wasn't saying that jayencee. I want to see clear evidence that things are working properly before I start pressing buttons. I am in a different position to someone with just one return.

I have 21 self-assessment 2012-13 returns to submit and 31 end of year payrolls. The idea that even 5 or 6 of them could fall into a black hole is dreadful, I want the risk to be near zero. Last year all this went fine, the year before I went a bit early and one payroll fell into the black hole.

For one business it's probably worth the risk. Keep the evidence - via PDF file - that the submission has been ACCEPTED by the database, which in itself can take up to half an hour from initiation.