Our C.E.O, Rob Ellis, was delighted to attend HMRC’s Developer Conference recently.
It had been devised by HMRC to discuss their API strategy with 100 third party tax and accounting software developers and featured presentations from Jim Harra (the Director General for Business Tax), Mark Dearnley (HMRC’s Chief Digital and Information Officer) and David Gaulk MP (Financial Secretary to the Treasury). APIs enable third party software applications to access HMRC systems and share information, say in the submission of tax returns or payroll.
At the conference, HMRC announced it is embarking on an ambitious strategy to achieve their vision of ‘making tax easier’. They want to ensure the completion of tax returns is simplified, so more people complete them accurately and ahead of the filing deadline.
More user-friendly tax submissions – the start of the tax relationship
Whilst HMRC admits it doesn’t have all the answers yet, it suggested it is keen to encourage people to move to monthly entry and payments of tax. As part of these plans, HMRC intends to educate the tax payer – both in terms of helping them to better understand their tax obligations and also how to complete the necessary forms. One delegate’s comment at the conference really summed up HMRC’s mood going forward – This is the end of the tax return and the start of the tax relationship.
One of the reasons why BTCSoftware had been invited along to the conference was that HMRC wants to actively engage the support of third party software providers to bring about their planned changes. They see providers such as us as a means to creating the new and innovative software apps which will make the completion of tax requirements (and the resulting tax payments) easier and more user-friendly. HMRC has suggested the future lies in a move away from a submission-only tax return model to a more interactive one.
To this end, they have brought on board an impressive technical team to work with the third party software community. These talented individuals seemed up for the challenge of transforming current tax technologies and were very enthusiastic about the journey ahead.
Restrictions for agents
One significant change which will affect agents very soon is HMRC’s intention to stop them using HMRC free software for multiple returns. They want them to instead adopt third party software for this. Only a new type of mini-agent – a Trusted Helper – will be allowed to submit returns for up to 5 people. Any more than that will have to be done via third party software.
The next steps
HMRC is currently working on its development roadmap and hopes to publish it in October. The roadmap will address the timetable it intends to work to for publishing the new digital APIs it needs to develop so third party software, such as ours, can interact effectively and seamlessly with the new HRMC systems. In November we, like other developers, will be invited to an API testing event.
Watch this space
So it would seem the tax and accounting community (as well as businesses, organisations and individuals) are clearly facing a significant period of change for HMRC. It is good though that they are talking to the software developer community and they are listening to the feedback they are getting.
At BTCSoftware, we are very pleased to be asked to play a part in the planned innovation. We will of course keep you posted of latest developments and, if you have any questions in relation to BTCSoftware and the proposed HMRC changes, please do get in touch.
