Why Making Tax Digital is so stupid

dori2o

Pennywise wrote: »

I'm so glad that you know so much about small businesses and their book-keepers and accountants. Remind me again - how many years have you been an accountant - how many sets of accounts have you prepared for the self employed? After all, you are clearly an expert. I now realise that I've been so stupid for the last 35 years as it never occurred to me to show my clients how they could improve their book-keeping. All my clients will be sat there, eagerly awaiting me telling them about how they can easily write up their accounts and file their paperwork neatly in plastic folders in just half an hour every Friday night. What an idiot I must have been all these years!

Its clearly not going to be the same for everyone, but for many of those self employed with very basic tax affairs it really is that simple. But you'd rather, as usual, use the most complicated possible cases to try and justify your blinkered opinion.

Im not going to bother giving any more comments or help on this topic, or anymore help in this forum cause its simply not worth it anymore.

Theres certain posters will never be happy, even if they got their own way they'd still find something to !!!! and whinge about. They're far happier spamming threads with their tales of woe, regarding just how badly the people at HMRC treat them and how everyone who works there is incompetent.

You have an opportunity to help change how people go about dealing with their statutory responsibilities if they choose to be.in business for themselves. Lets not forget its their choice to be in business, nobody forces their arm.

Your so blinded by your hatred for a system you don't have all the facts of that you refuse to see any of the potential benefits for you, your clients or the rest of the general public.

I'll leave this part of the forum to the moaners who are doing their best to scaremonger people into fearing the up coming changes.

chrismac1

If the MTD team were so confident about the massive benefits they are claiming this will bring small businesses, then it would be voluntary not mandatory to join their stupid scheme.

End of story. They know deep down it is drivel, so they will enforce it at gunpoint - or to be precise the point of 6 £100 fines per year.

chrismac1

One thing you'd at least think would give HMRC a bit of concern is exactly why there is so much opposition from accountants. After all I personally expect to be £10,000 to £20,000 better off in after tax pay if it all goes through, based on how I think it is going to be specified which admittedly is about as clear as very dark mud.

It's obvious why the software providers are so keen on it, they expect to be quids in. What the Numpty in Chief should be worrying about is why someone like me, who will also be quids in, is nonetheless implaccably against it.

Pennywise

dori2o wrote: »

I'll leave this part of the forum to the moaners who are doing their best to scaremonger people into fearing the up coming changes.

What about the parliamentary select committee who have raised grave doubts and asked for a delay and re-think?

What about all the business bodies/associations who have likewise raised their concerns?

You're making it sound like it's just a few random people - there are all kinds of "authoritative" people warning about MTD but HMRC and the Treasury are sat with their fingers in their ears chanting "la la la".

HMRC have form. They were told about the potential problems of payroll RTI - they pressed ahead and today after a few years, it's still not 100% accurate and plagued with all kinds of submission problems. Every year, it takes HMRC months to update their corporation tax return system so companies are unable to file their corporation tax returns until Summer if they have a year end after 1 April, despite the tax rate being known months/years in advance. Upcoming VAT return periods regularly disappear from their VAT system for no obvious reason. This year, their self assessment tax return is wrong for people with a certain mix/level of incomes and despite knowing the tax changes for over a year and being told of the problem six months ago, they have said the system won't be corrected until next year!! Worse thing is, though, that their usual response when told about their foul ups is denial and deflecting blame back to the taxpayer/business - they're basically using their users as guinea pigs to test their systems - even when they finally accept a failure at their end, they are painfully slow to report it on their website or tell all their advisors about it, so it can take months of being being inconvenienced.

If they can foul up all this which affects relatively small numbers of people, heaven knows what kind of foul ups they'll cause when millions of people are forced into MTD.

Victor_the_Gink

dori2o wrote: »

Its clearly not going to be the same for everyone, but for many of those self employed with very basic tax affairs it really is that simple. But you'd rather, as usual, use the most complicated possible cases to try and justify your blinkered opinion.

Im not going to bother giving any more comments or help on this topic, or anymore help in this forum cause its simply not worth it anymore.

Theres certain posters will never be happy, even if they got their own way they'd still find something to !!!! and whinge about. They're far happier spamming threads with their tales of woe, regarding just how badly the people at HMRC treat them and how everyone who works there is incompetent.

You have an opportunity to help change how people go about dealing with their statutory responsibilities if they choose to be.in business for themselves. Lets not forget its their choice to be in business, nobody forces their arm.

Your so blinded by your hatred for a system you don't have all the facts of that you refuse to see any of the potential benefits for you, your clients or the rest of the general public.

I'll leave this part of the forum to the moaners who are doing their best to scaremonger people into fearing the up coming changes.

Have you been at the ketamine again?

Wayne_O_Mac

Victor_the_Gink wrote: »

Have you been at the ketamine again?

This is classless and tasteless and you should be ashamed of yourself.

chrismac1

One of the curious things about the MTD project is HMRC staff, who have for the most part zero hours' experience of book-keeping and accountancy at the sharp end, feel very qualified to make big hairy judgement calls on how this should be done.

I have 4 "scan and post" clients who came to me on Quickbooks, Clearbooks and Xero. ALL of them are above average in terms of my client base and their ability to post with accuracy, all bar one have profits per director in excess of £50,000.

All of them pay extra fees to get me to sort out their mispostings. Bank balances which are miles away from the bank statements, butchered VAT returns, PAYE mess-ups, £40k of spend on sub-contractors coded to repairs and fixed assets. The list is bloody endless.

ALL of the above named systems have significant weknesses which I have raised with them, at least Clearbooks then changed their program on VAT so all of their customers could benefit from the VAT glitch I told them about. So far no such action from Xero or QBO who are both denying the existence of a problem, in much the same way as the generic HMRC response to clear and identifiable system weaknesses.

Victor_the_Gink

Wayne_O_Mac wrote: »

This is classless and tasteless and you should be ashamed of yourself.

Is it really? Someone that denigrates my profession by just assuming you can do it on a kitchen table on a Friday night, then press a button and pop it's all done? It's basically mocking 15 years of training, and im going to bite.

The OP is a little OTT in this thread, and I said so, but then when his bête noire turned up this thread was only headed south.

agrinnall

Victor_the_Gink wrote: »

Is it really?

It is if you have any awareness of dori2o's history. In fact, it's probably bordering on offensive, which isn't the case with the posts about the abilities of accountants.