No longer neutral

I must admit I was previously fairly neutral on the subject of online tax returns being rejected by HMRC's computer systems. No longer.

I recently had a 'code 3001' rejection for a corporation tax return form CT600. My software supplier told me that the wording of the rejection comes from HMRC. The wording says (not very clearly in my opinion) that there is an invalid character in the address field.

Well I could not see it.

Further enquiries were made and I was told that the first line of the address can have no more than 28 characters.

So 'Unit 91 Bloggins Enterprise Centre' is an invalid address. Is this a sensible restriction? I am told that this address would be accepted on a paper form.

The point is that the rejection notice should have told me that. I suppose technically the 29th character is invalid...