‘A report by Yahoo was published on the 18th of March 2017 indicating errors in tax returns for self-employed individuals. HMRC initially denied the problem but later admitted the errors, claiming that they affected only a “handful of people”.’
The recent report explores concerns over individuals not being able to spot the correction being made by HMRC or believing that the removal of NI contributions from the return is correct. An accountant commented on this suggesting that, “the problem is self-employed who file, who see an adjustment coming through, which is probably in their favour and small – the risk is they will breathe a sigh of relief and think they don’t owe HMRC any more and leave it at that,”
Ian Abrey commented
“This has got to be a major concern in the lead up to Making Tax Digital, which will be introduced from next year. Human error is always a risk in the tax system (on both sides of the fence) but if this is a systems fault, as HMRC’s response suggests, what confidence can taxpayers have that their returns will generate the right tax charge.
Many taxpayers are facing an increased administrative burden and substantial costs of moving to quarterly submissions from next year and the least they can expect from HMRC is confidence that the tax charge generated by the system will be correct.”