Agent Update: issue 81 – Tax agent blog
Agent Update: issue 81 – Tax agent blog
Agent Update 81 is available now and contains the latest articles, Self Assessment support, updates and help for the entire agent community.
Tax return agents’ ‘copycat’ websites
With the 31 January deadline for filing SA returns fast approaching, the media has been asking us for our view on ‘copycat websites’, where companies offer to file returns for customers in return for large fees - sometimes up to …
Spamalot
It’s now mid January and one new year’s resolution we don’t want to break is our commitment to make sure we reach you with all our HMRC email notifications. We know from Twitter and agent discussion forums last year that …
The National Minimum Wage
In a recent statement in the Financial Times, the Prime Minister said, there would be much higher penalties for employers who fail to pay the National Minimum Wage (NMW). He said: “We are (also) clamping down on those who employ …
Recognising the future relationship between agents and HMRC
Happy New Year, the start of the New Year is a busy period for agents and for us in HMRC, with the Self Assessment deadline at the end of the month, so 2013 already feels like a distant memory. But, …
Experience of working in a high street agent for HMRC trainees
Back in the Spring I asked contacts within the larger representative bodies to help me find places for our tax technical trainees to experience a day in the life of a high street agent. These trainees spend most of their …
Local Working Together
I’m Jill Hawkins and I lead the ‘E’ within ASSET – the Engagement Team. I’ll be letting you know about the activities of my team as they engage with the agent community across the country. One of my team’s responsibilities …
Tax Agent Strategy
It might be winter outside but there’s a spring in our step after a very productive period of work on the Agent Strategy. There’s still work to do but I wanted to give you a quick update on where we …
HMRC’s webinars
In my first blog I highlighted our recent survey about agents’ use of HMRC’s agent toolkits. This has now finished and I’m pleased to say we had a really good response rate. We’re analysing the results and I’ll let you know what we …
Proposed legislative changes for Self Assessment
As we move into December thoughts start to turn to Christmas, though of course the retail industry has been celebrating it since October. And for tax agents it is the run up the Self Assessment filing deadline at the end …
Quarterly meetings and fixing bugs
I recently had a week of important quarterly meetings with agent representatives. It can be a logistical challenge to get all the papers and presenters in the same room at the same time. So we group the meetings because some of our agent rep …