First self assessment tax return

pgthompsonco

This is fun, I do not claim to be an authority on English spelling.But the O,O1 % is the one that was completely correct. Multiply by 2 thousand and that;s quite a lot that were completely correct.
My sample was 300 clients over 40 year, so statistically significant. But then I am not a scientist or a statistician. I can only go on the errors I find on examination after submission by other accountants and clients who did their own. Looking at my own submissions, they were better after amendment, usually caused by late information arriving after the submission deadline.
HMRC were always wrong before self assessment - because few bothered to give HMRC the correct information and it was never complete, because the world and tax are too complicated for perfection. The word "significant" comes to mind. When HMRC are sensible this is something they expect us all to work by.

pgthompsonco

Who believes the earth is flat? My allotment is certainly not flat, but neither does it appear round. The question is when is belief significant and what affect does that belief have on you and the people around you. If you believe that loving all people is something you should do you may have a happy life but will often be disappointed. If believe everything in religious books you may be just self centered and destroy the local economy around you.Discrimination can be used in two way one good one bad. How do you discriminate?

Pennywise

sheramber wrote: »

They need to teach to red through a form carefully before attempting to answer the questions, not jumping about looking where to put this and where to put that.

Unfortunately, with the online SA return, it's a series of questions that follow on from earlier answers, so you can't see the whole form.

To do that, you'd need to search for the pdf/paper version online and all the possible supplementary sheets, which looks very daunting.

Hence why they designed a "simple" online questionnaire, the idea being that you only answered relevant questions and didn't see the 99% of the form that won't apply to you.

Pennywise

redpete wrote: »

Can you cite the evidence for that because I find it difficult to believe that only one in 1000 returns are completed correctly.

Whilst I agree that 1 in 1000 is a ridiculous figure to cite, I do think the number of returns containing errors will be very high, although most will not affect the tax liability or the difference will only be trivial.

I'd estimate that at least half of the tax returns I see which are prepared by the taxpayer themselves, their "friend", their retired mother who used to be an accountant, or a glorified book-keeper pretending to be an accountant, contain errors. Whilst most are trivial, some are absolute howlers.

I also regularly come across people who havn't submitted tax returns who should have done so, sometimes going back several years or even decades. Not by any fraudulent intent, just because of ignorance of the tax laws or bad advice from family, friends or unqualified accountants.

Pennywise

badmemory wrote: »

They should never have stopped teaching reading comprehesion in schools. We did it all through primary & was a major pain but at least we know what a form means when it says employment income before tax & tax paid.

The UK tax system is far too complicated. The HMRC website itself contains numerous errors. Tax law contradicts itself in many cases. HMRC customer service staff are often poorly trained and poorly educated themselves.

I am old enough to have done "comprehension" in school. I have top grades in both GCE and A Level English Language and Literature. I am educated to masters degree level. I've been an accountant for 35 years. I still have trouble trying to make sense of some of HMRC's so-called "simple" forms and their "user friendly" website!

I never mock anyone who has trouble understanding the UK tax system. It's not fit for purpose and people need all the help they can get to try to understand it. It's like swimming through treacle.

There are some forms where you get the "wrong" outcome by answering the questions correctly - that's OK, I know what the outcome should be so I know which questions to answer wrongly! What hope would Joe Public have to get the right outcomes?

As for their phone "helpline" - word fail me. There've been times when I've phoned up asking for a particular form (one of the ones that aren't on HMRC website and which are only issued upon request) only to be told no such form exists (because the HMRC call centre worker is just looking at their gov.uk simplified website!). When I try to explain the law or give them the link to the relevant statute or reference in their manuals, they just go into "la la land" of denial. That means I have to hang up and try again in the hope of getting a call centre worker who knows more about it - it's just a lottery.

Better comprehension would of course be a help for the simplest of things, but it's just a sticking plaster. The UK tax system needs wholesale reform from top to bottom.

Mahsroh

Pennywise wrote: »

Unfortunately, with the online SA return, it's a series of questions that follow on from earlier answers, so you can't see the whole form.

To do that, you'd need to search for the pdf/paper version online and all the possible supplementary sheets, which looks very daunting.

Hence why they designed a "simple" online questionnaire, the idea being that you only answered relevant questions and didn't see the 99% of the form that won't apply to you.

The first time I ever did one I printed off a couple of PDF versions of the form to help understand it. Once I'd done a couple of "practice runs" by hand, I then went back and filled it out online.


Doing it that way helped me immensely.

sorcerer

Mahsroh wrote: »

The first time I ever did one I printed off a couple of PDF versions of the form to help understand it. Once I'd done a couple of "practice runs" by hand, I then went back and filled it out online.


Doing it that way helped me immensely.

I did the same thing when I first started, it was useful for getting the bigger picture of your tax situation. These days I just do it online, but I try to do It nice and early, so I will fill it in, check it, wait a couple of weeks then go back and check it again. Then I will submit.

redpete

pgthompsonco wrote: »

This is fun, I do not claim to be an authority on English spelling.But the O,O1 % is the one that was completely correct. Multiply by 2 thousand and that;s quite a lot that were completely correct.

So was the number of correct returns 0.1% (100%-99.9%) or 0.01% (is this what you mean by O,O1%?)

If the former, then out of 2 thousand submissions that is 2 correct, if the latter then it is zero correct, neither of which is "quite a lot".

My sample was 300 clients over 40 year, so statistically significant.

Let's assume an average of 200 clients each year, that's 8000 tax returns over your career, with 99.9% containing errors that means you received 8 correctly completed returns in 40 years!

I guess becoming a chartered accountant doesn't need an understanding of basic maths.

badmemory

pgthompsonco wrote: »

Who believes the earth is flat? My allotment is certainly not flat, but neither does it appear round. The question is when is belief significant and what affect does that belief have on you and the people around you. If you believe that loving all people is something you should do you may have a happy life but will often be disappointed. If believe everything in religious books you may be just self centered and destroy the local economy around you.Discrimination can be used in two way one good one bad. How do you discriminate?

And if you are from GU14 I hope you are not advertising!

dunroving

Mahsroh wrote: »

The first time I ever did one I printed off a couple of PDF versions of the form to help understand it. Once I'd done a couple of "practice runs" by hand, I then went back and filled it out online.


Doing it that way helped me immensely.

sorcerer wrote: »

I did the same thing when I first started, it was useful for getting the bigger picture of your tax situation. These days I just do it online, but I try to do It nice and early, so I will fill it in, check it, wait a couple of weeks then go back and check it again. Then I will submit.

I did a similar thing with mine, as this was my first year of self-assessment. I first printed off a blank basic form, and filled in tentative numbers and "notes to self", during a train journey down to Birmingham. Then I went online (I'd already got my UTR, etc.) and filled it in online and saved it. While filling it in, I learned a couple of other things I needed to look into (hence a few posts on here around that time!). After filling in I then printed off and read through with more "notes to self".

Overall, other than one thing I managed to get myself confused over, related to SIPP contributions, it wasn't that complicated, but did require me to put some time into it and also allowing time for things to settle in my head.

I think if there are lots of errors, it is probably due to (a) having a complicated tax situation, or (b) leaving things to the last minute and either not reading carefully or deliberately making "errors" because they lead to a favourable outcome.