Digital downside

KEY POINTS

• Benefits of online filing are unquantified.
• The burden of iXBRL.
• Variations in tagging.
• Mandation is not good.
• Importance of keeping data safe.

HMRC’s online services are widely used and greatly valued by most tax agents as well as many businesses and individuals. Wider use of such services might well bring advantages to government the business community and individual taxpayers.

It is damaging however for government to impose online filing requirements that place unreasonable compliance burdens on taxpayers.

Here I will examine this further in relation to iXBRL Digital by Default and particularly for tax agents data security.

On 11 November 2011 the National Audit Office published a report on the expansion of HMRC’s online filing services.

The report suggests...