Here are some snippets from the HMRC Agent MTD newsletter No. 8, issued today.
Just over half a million business have now been signed up. This is expected to increase rapidly over the next month or so.
It takes 72 hours to sign a business up to MTD. However, if the business has a DD set up, they must be signed up no later than 8 working days before the filing deadline (26th July for April - June clients)
Although HMRC are adopting a light handed approach to penalties until April 2020, they will send out nudge letters to businesses who should have signed up but haven't. The first batch of these will go out later this month to businesses on Monthly VAT that should have signed up to file April VAT.
The vast majority of customers that have signed up (or have been signed up by an agent) to Making Tax Digital are now able to view their VAT Certificate in their Business Tax Account (HMRC online services).
The functionality for agents to access this information will be delivered in August, in the meantime they should call the VAT helpline to request VAT Certificate information. (Yeah right, if you can get through) It's worth mentioning that VAT certificates can be viewed on the old agent online account but only before you've signed them up. Once signed up they disappear.
The interactive voice recognition on the VAT helpline has been updated to recognise the phrases Making Tax Digital and MTD.
Agents are now able to track the status of any requests that they have made to authorise new clients in the last 30 days in the agent services account.
To ensure that all agents are able to create an ASA and to sign their clients up in good time to meet their MTD obligation in good time, HMRC will now allow the creation of an ASA on the basis of a pending AMLS application. However if your application is refused your agent services access will be withdrawn. That's of particular interest to me, especially in light of my discussion with Vince.
And finally: Agents should only sign businesses up using their agent credentials, not those of the businesses. Please note that only those acting as paid agents should create an ASA to file on behalf of clients.
Also note there will be some downtime next weekend. 13th July 7.30 - 8.30 pm and 14th July 0.00 - 2.00 am
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
I think the figure for those that are mandatory is 1.1m. More than half of these have not signed up. I would guess that 200,000-300,000 will miss the first mandatory return.
I was thinking about this John. We have to allow for those that don't need to sign up until August or September (say 300k?) which leaves 250k to sign up in July
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
My experience of the people who signed up early is that they were from a range of staggers. However, the April-June stagger is much bigger than the others. It remains, however, that a high proportion of those people not using cloud accounting have not yet signed up. I am not really that surprised as I expect this to be a gradual process.
Although HMRC are adopting a light handed approach to penalties until April 2020, they will send out nudge letters to businesses who should have signed up but haven't.
That's a bit of a relief, TBH. I don't think I'll get my messiest one sorted in time for their VAT return this month (the one I mentioned in the other thread - I spoke to the director Friday, and he has no idea where he's put any tax related paperwork, so I doubt I'll have their UTR any time soon!)
The interactive voice recognition on the VAT helpline has been updated to recognise the phrases Making Tax Digital and MTD.
I'd suggest they add recognition of Making Tax Despicable, as well. Although to be fair, it probably would mishear Digital as Despicable, so that's okay.
And finally: Agents should only sign businesses up using their agent credentials, not those of the businesses.
Wait, what? Why? I've never set up my ASA (unless it's automatically done with the MLR - never looked, TBH.) What difference does it make, really?
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
What HMRC are trying to do is to
a) Ensure agents are following money laundering rules
b) Get agents to use the ASA rather than clients credentials.
c) Try to find out when an agent is doing the vat return rather than the client.
That makes sense, I suppose - apart from one thing; the very end of b.
It's been a long while since I had to set one up, but I'm pretty sure my log-ins - although not an ASA - are unique to me. I'm sure pretty any given company can have more than one log-in, so strictly speaking it's not "clients' credentials"; it's just not obviously identifiable from HMRC's point of view, whether it's the client, an employee, or someone acting on their behalf. Using an ASA makes that clear.
So b and c in your list kind of merge.
Of course, it's also possible, that the reason my client log-ins are unique to me is because I'm the only one who has ever set up a log-in, and it's not possible for anyone else to do likewise.
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
I don't think it is possible to have the same Vat number on two different sets of ordinary credentials and there is an assumption that this is the business's account. HMRC have said they would like to use technical measures to stop agents using clients' systems, but it is difficult for them to distinguish technically between an agent and a client with a number of businesses.
I would, however, expect this to be tightened up over the years and would not be surprised if they brought in a scheme whereby ASA equivalent accounts were available for people with more than one business. I, for example, have a number of business gateway accounts. However, the majority of them have the same email address.
I can't have been clear. I've talked of multiple log-ins and ASAs in this thread, but I'm not conflating them; if it appears I did, then I didn't mean to suggest anyone other than an agent could do so.
"and it's a manual process not an automatic one"
Okay - as I said, I didn't know on that.
John H:
"I don't think it is possible to have the same Vat number on two different sets of ordinary credentials"
This is based on a distant memory, but when I took on a client several years ago they were having problems with their log-in and I managed to sort it. I'm sure I remember seeing reference to an 'admin' user when dealing with that - the very notion of such a thing leads me to believe it is indeed possible, because if there's only one log-in, why would it refer to a specific type of user?
Ah, hell... *logs in to a client's account* ...
Yup.
Once in, if you go to "Manage account" in the new layout (not sure where it would have been before) under the "Your account" section at the top, there's a link for "Account users", and expanding that there's a link to "Manage users". If you click on that you can "Add or delete a user account" or "Manage who can access your taxes and schemes."
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
Once in, if you go to "Manage account" in the new layout (not sure where it would have been before) under the "Your account" section at the top, there's a link for "Account users", and expanding that there's a link to "Manage users". If you click on that you can "Add or delete a user account" or "Manage who can access your taxes and schemes."
There are two types is ASA accounts. The old account where we have all our clients listed against the taxes we are thier agent. This account cannot be used for MTD. Then the new ASA account, which HMRC need the AML practice details to set up. This one is for MTD. It can be linked to the old account, to tell you on the old account that you have a client set up for MTD on the new account. At the moment the new account doesnt show much else........... But I cant login to check for a couple days.
The paragraph you quoted isn't about ASAs - it's about being able to set up more than one log-in on VAT accounts (probably any HMRC log-in, but I can only check on the log-ins I have, which are all for VAT).
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
I can't have been clear. I've talked of multiple log-ins and ASAs in this thread, but I'm not conflating them; if it appears I did, then I didn't mean to suggest anyone other than an agent could do so.
I don't think that came across as well as I'd hoped. What I was trying to say is if you're not an agent then you don't need to worry about setting up an ASA account.
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
Am I missing something in the translation from the original Klingon? Given that "ASA" stands for "Agent Services Account" surely that's stating the obvious?
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
Am I missing something in the translation from the original Klingon? Given that "ASA" stands for "Agent Services Account" surely that's stating the obvious?
Only picking up on what you said upthread.
And finally: Agents should only sign businesses up using their agent credentials, not those of the businesses.
Wait, what? Why? I've never set up my ASA (unless it's automatically done with the MLR - never looked, TBH.) What difference does it make, really?
There must be something more subtle in this definition of an agent, then, that I am still missing or misunderstanding. In the context of this discussion, what do you define as being an agent?
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
Someone who has signed up with HMRC to be a VAT agent, and have a VAT agent code, and a Government Gateway (1) log in where they can (pre MTD) log in to submit their clients VAT returns.
(1) They can also be a CT, paye and SA agent as well. Access is through the same gateway.
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
I had a suspicion your definition would be something like that - specifically, the "signed up with HMRC" bit.
By definition, an agent is an entity that acts on behalf of another - so if we narrow the context to the submission of VAT returns, an agent is someone who submits them on behalf of a client. Look back at your first post in this thread - specifically, this bit:
"Agents should only sign businesses up using their agent credentials, not those of the businesses. Please note that only those acting as paid agents should create an ASA to file on behalf of clients."
Without the second sentence it might be possible to interpret the first as referring to agents who have signed up with HMRC to be a VAT agent, but I would be inclined to think they mean anyone who acts as an agent in the slightly wider context that - and the second sentence clarifies exactly that point:
HMRC considers an agent to be anyone who takes a fee from another entity to submit VAT returns on their behalf, and are indicating that they want them to set up an ASA and submit client VAT returns through it.
Unless it becomes mandatory, though ("should...") I'll carry on as I am.
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
