The HMRC programming pixies sometimes forget that the UK tax system would grind to a halt without the hard work and goodwill of tax agents. The online services they build are often designed without an “agents door”, leaving accountants to struggle on with paper forms, or even worse – excluding them from the process altogether.
A recent example of such bad design is the trust registration service which replaced the paper form: 41G(trusts) in July 2017, as we explained in our newsletter on 14 September 2017. This service has finally been opened up to tax agents to register trusts on behalf of their clients.
All trusts need to be registered through this online service, even if HMRC are already aware of all the details via the earlier paper form. Trusts already within self-assessment need to be registered by 31 January 2018, but CIOT and ATT are asking HMRC to push this deadline back to 5 April 2018.
New trusts which need to be registered for self-assessment for the first time to submit an SA return for 2016/17, technically should have registered for SA through the online system by 5 October 2017. But HMRC has effectively extended that deadline to 5 December 2017, by promising not to impose penalties for late SA registrations completed by that date.
For more information contact DFC accountants in Cardiff, Wales.