Just been doing my tax return online. I see they've completely changed the way it works.
Does anyone think it's an improvement from the previous version?
I had lots of questions I didn't know how to answer - did you give to charity? - well, yes but via GAYE but only if you answer it yes and then go to the page that lets you put in the number do you find that the notes say don't enter GAYE. (Actually I do have one very small donation outsite of GAYE that I've never bothered to declare before so I still had something to put in the box)
"Your tax code appears to contain an adjustment for underpaid tax". The amount is 0.00. Is this correct? Yes/No.
This is a compulsory question, you can't ignore it. But I didn't have underpaid tax - I got a fairly large refund last year. And even if I had had an adjustment, how am I supposed to know what magic is used to calculate my tax code. So I just answered yes (otherwise you have to put in a correct figure). I then got the same question again - so I answered yes again. Then it seemed to be happy.
I also used the "back" button on the second question - that was a mistake. (That's the back button on the page, not the back button on the browser). Then I couldn't use the next button any more - kept telling me I had multiple browsers open. Had to go back to the menus and start again (didn't lose any information).
And you don't get a nice PDF equivalent of the tax return any more. But even though it's now supposed to be a "lightweight" version, it still prints out to ten pages, (compared to 15 last year) and almost everything on those ten pages is "Not Entered".
I also don't like the way you just put in the net amount for interest etc and then it calculates the gross amount and the tax. Made it difficult to match the repayment due with my spreadsheet. Assuming I've done the calculations correctly, I'm going to get 1.22GBP extra in refund than I would have done last year :-) But I'd rather have given the tax man that extra 1.22 and saved a hour trying to work out what figure I'd entered incorrectly into the form.
But maybe others think it's an improvement? Maybe it was just that I'd got used to what numbers were expected in which boxes in the old online system.
Tim.