HMRC’s Making Tax Digital pre-population API stalls
As part of Making Tax Digital, HMRC ran a limited version of its pre-population service for tax agents for 2016/17 self-assessment. In its latest Agent Update HMRC says it is still working on the API. What are the latest developments and when is it likely to be generally available?
What are self-assessment APIs for??The pre-population application programming interface (API) gives accountants etc. access to a range of information about their clients which HMRC has collected from various sources. It feeds the data directly to individuals’ self-assessment records and includes information relating to their employments, income tax, taxable benefits, Class 2 NI and marriage allowance. When software is used to prepare a tax return the data is uploaded to the form via HMRC?s API.
Pre-population was trialled from April 2017. The trouble is that a lot self-assessment software can?t use it and HMRC?s latest update (20 February 2018) says there?s no firm date when it will be available. The hold-up is caused by security issues and concerns that it won?t cope with high volume usage.
Can you use pre-population??The first port of call is your software provider to check if your software is MTD-enabled. If so HMRC runs an identity check. The check is made every 18 months and not each time the API is used. To verify the accountant etc. is genuine HMRC asks about data already held, e.g information from the client?s UK passport or recent P60.
API problems. The data obtained via pre-population hasn?t been 100% reliable. For example, pension income has shown up as an employment, and income from two or more pensions with the same pension company has been aggregated making it difficult to check.
Warning.?Agents who sign into the Personal Tax Account of a client, using the client?s login details (a no-no in HMRC?s book), may find their client?s account gets linked to their own Personal Tax Account, which might cause a great deal of confusion later. It?s therefore safer to avoid doing it. There has also been confusion about which agent account you use: the APIs are at this stage working with the account linked to agents’ SA codes and not the new agent services account, although that?s where it will work eventually. There?s more about this in HMRC?s FAQ document about self-assessment pre-population APIs.