You will recall the debacle over submitting the 2016/17 SA tax returns; due to the large number of exclusions from online filing many tax returns had to be submitted on paper, (see our newsletters 27 July, 31 August, and 2 November 2017). It thus comes as no surprise that HMRC has still failed to process many of those paper returns.
If you need to make a second payment on account for 2017/18 by 31 July 2018, you should have received a statement from HMRC. But where your 2016/17 tax return has not been processed that statement will be incorrect, as it won’t reflect the reported liability for 2016/17, or in some cases the first payment on account paid by 31 January 2018 for 2017/18. The taxpayer’s online personal tax account will also show an incorrect position.
We advise you to pay the on account amount which we calculated when completing your tax return, and we will explain why this figure differs from the official HMRC statement.
We can also complain directly to HMRC about the number of clients who have been affected by delay in processing the tax returns which has led to incorrect tax computations. The best way to do this is through the Agent Forum, although only members of accounting professional bodies are permitted to join this forum at present.
Written by the Tax Advice Network