TaxCalc Blog

Chips and Gravy

So, now you may be wondering why anyone at TaxCalc would be writing a post about chips and gravy. 

Well, we ask our customers if they have a couple of minutes to complete a survey after any remote log in session or email correspondence with us. This gives us an idea of how we are performing in relation to the support that we provide our customers. We also have a similar survey for feedback about the product itself.

We continually review the results and the comments received from these surveys and would like to thank everyone who left the fantastic comments we received throughout January 2016.  However, it seems that we just weren’t specific enough for one customer when we asked for additional comments. They took the opportunity to tell us that they like chips and gravy! ...

HMRC's New APIs – How They Work in TaxCalc 2016

Hi there. I’m Greg Case and I’m TaxCalc’s Head of Product Development. I’ve recently been reviewing HMRC’s progress with the implementation of their new Application Program Interfaces (APIs) and how we’re going to incorporate this into the forthcoming 2016 version of our software.

In a nutshell it will give TaxCalc the ability to gather information that HMRC hold about a taxpayer and, in time, even update it in real time and outside of the tax return itself.

But only if you want it to. To do this, you need to give your TaxCalc software permission to work with HMRC’s APIs. TaxCalc can’t access any information unless you allow it to.

In this article, we’ll look at how it works…

Gathering Customer Feedback

We are now in the second week of January and we are pleased to report that, in Support, we are exceeding expectations with an average wait time of just 26 seconds last week.

I mentioned in my previous article that we listen to our customers, and we really do! Part of our review process for cases involves looking at how many customers would like a feature or change to be implemented, so we rely on customers telling us what they want…

Behind the Scenes of Working with Government

Just before Christmas, there was a lot of discussion on AccountingWeb regarding quarterly reporting and the notion of there being a petition set up to challenge the strategy as announced in the Autumn Statement.

As an apolitical organisation, we won’t be drawn into whether quarterly reporting is a good idea or not but with 229 comments (at time of writing) on this particular thread, it’s clearly proven to be a fiercely debated topic.

One of the comments that caught my eye during the debate was a call for the Big Four firms and accountancy bodies to use their influence with HMRC.

This gave me two thoughts…

Customer Service at TaxCalc

At TaxCalc, we care about our customers and providing excellent customer service is at the heart of the business. HMRC wait times have been in the news a lot recently and of course it comes as no surprise to anyone that, during a recent Which? Survey, it was revealed that their average wait time between 25 September and 2 October 2015 was 38 minutes – and this wasn’t even during January, the busiest time of the Self Assessment season!

Support Hours

Christmas is approaching, so it’s time to inform our customers of our opening hours throughout the holiday period.

As usual, we’ll be keeping a support service running during this time because we appreciate that some limited companies accounts and tax returns need to be submitted by 31 December. And, as usual, we'll be extending our January support hours to help our customers at this busy time.

• Christmas opening hours - we will be providing email support on 29, 30 and 31 December between 9am and 5:30pm.

• January opening hours – our extended support hours during this month are:

o    Monday – Friday: 9:30am and 8pm

o    Saturdays: 10am and 4pm (commencing 9 January)

o    Sunday 31: 10am and 4pm

Emails will also be monitored during the evening of 31 January.

We wish you a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

Digital Tax Accounts and Quarterly Reporting

The Government today released a new document about Digital Tax Accounts. Entitled Making Tax Digital, it consolidates information that has been released into the public domain since the March Budget and lays out the roadmap by which HMRC will transform from its current regime to the new digital one.

Having read numerous articles in the press these last few days, many reporters have reiterated the fact that Digital Tax Accounts, both for individuals and businesses, will be the norm by 2020. However, what seems to have slipped somewhat under the radar by a few is the requirement for “most” self employed people and landlords to make quarterly returns from April 2018…

The Digital Tax Account – Public Beta and a New Name

On Tuesday 1 December 2015, HMRC formally launched the public beta of the Digital Tax Account, now renamed the Personal Tax Account (PTA).

The new service, as with all new Government projects, is to be delivered in a piecemeal fashion. In this article, we’ll take a look at what it can do…