Liadnan

The online support people managed to fail to send me a new user ID when I requested it, which was very kind of them. As a result I had to download the PDF of the paper return, print it, fill it in and take it round to the local tax office. Admittedly they were incredibly helpful there (and there was no queue) but I'd have preferred them to sort out my user ID in time, so I had some confidence in the amount I paid rather than relying on my own poor arithmetic and uncertainty as to, say, what amounts you have to round the pence up or down for and which you don't.

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... oh, and isn't it Adam Hart Davies?

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liadnan

Do you know, I really can't remember... You know who I mean though.

I have everything filled in and ready to submit, and know what is due, but when I hit the "submit" button I am getting a rather ominous red "socket failed". I shall probably give them a ring tomorrow and see what the score is.

Ah, it's now returning "technical difficulties, please try again later."

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Yeah, y'know, thingybloke.

And you have my sympathies - I had to work out my self-employment tax return yesterday in a mad hurry without recourse to the online stuff which I assumed I'd have available.. mutter mutter scaling for peak demand mutter.

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liadnan

Thing is, it is actually a fairly nifty thing, far better than most developed economies have I think, and what govt should be doing an' all. But yes, we all know we should have done it months ago, but I know for a fact that half the bar for a start will be doing theirs tomorrow lunchtime. They ought to be able to avoid snafus at the last minute: they don't have the excuses of (eg) Glastonbury.
WOnder what it runs on.

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Its headers are kind of coy and only say "Apache" without any further qualifying information, and I know better than to try running portscanning and TCP-fingerprinting tools against the Inland Revenue to try and figure more out. It'd most likely only tell me it was a load balancer anyway.

Of course, major government IT projects have a habit of being Windows-based...

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liadnan

Did you see that a side issue emerging from the allegations of "secret" Downing St email systems has been that the supposedly secure labour party labour webmail gateway (a) is operated by a company bought out by Microsoft some years ago and (b) returns warnings that the security certificates of that company, Whale Communications are some 4 years out of date. See http://www.lpnet.org.uk and discussion on Guido Fawkes at http://www.5thnovember.blogpsot.com

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marnameow.livejournal.com

They messed up my replace-password thing, and *that* is my this-year's excuse for the last minute-ness. (Mind, I am lazy like a thing and probably wouldn't have gotten around it to before now anyway.)

I filled out all the clicky forms quite swiftly earlier, and now I am stuck at the 'actually submit this' stage. Which is stalled, and has been for some hours now. Grr!

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liadnan

Yep, that's where mine hung too. Download the pdf so you have something to wave at them and persist, I think mine went through in the end. Glad I decided to bite the bullet tonight rather than my usual 2PM on the 31st special.

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marnameow.livejournal.com

I have a downloaded non-pdf version, and if all else fails I can copy it across to an old-skool paper thing and give it in tomorrow. Still waiting.... It's now logging me out every refresh, which means faffery!

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liadnan

I went through that refresh and relogin loop several times... Luck.

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marnameow.livejournal.com

W00+! I am done. In the meantime, I consoled myself by looking at pictures from festivals, because too much tax-malarky was making me feel like a grownup.

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I AM NOT SAYING NOTHING.

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liadnan

Oh thrprrrr

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I went down to Bush House at about 2pm to deliver mine, plus rather large check.

No picket lines at all, just a motherly lady standing behind a trestle table ripping open our envelopes and stapling forms together.

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liadnan

Why Bush House? Does the Revenue have an office in a BBC World Service cupboard? (Not that the BBC can have much longer there now) II know the lawyers are in Somerset House (and refuse to move, as became evident when it was touted as a Supreme Court location) but I thought everyone else was in Cardiff.

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They do indeed have an office in Bush House, facing the Strand in the south west wing next to the Indian High Consulate Visa office.

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f4f3.livejournal.com

This is not a good time, then to mention that I've not been asked to self-assess for the first time in a decade or so?

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alan1957.livejournal.com

it's def. NOT peter snow, 'e doesn't care when (or indeed 'if') yew post your tax return...i fink peter snow probably takes very large amounts of recreational drugs.

very large...

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[Looks around at the huge collection of leaflets and placards and tries to appear innocent...]

What strike would that be, then?

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liadnan

Out of vague interest, did the relevance of tomorrow to the Inland Revenue have any bearing on the choice of date? I assume not as I know it's not just an HMRC strike and have some vague idea that if anything it's considered good to avoid particularly significant dates.

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I've been told (I don't know if it's true) that the date was specifically chosen to create the most disruption.

AFAIR, there's no gentleman's agreement to avoid significant dates, and if there ever was Thatcher put paid to it. Trade unionists have long collective memories.

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liadnan

Actually, excuse my ignorance for I have been obsessed by my own problems for over a month, but what is the strike over?

NB to all other readers, including in particular civil servants, this is not an invitation to a general debtate on it, you can take that elsewhere.

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You remember Gordon Brown announcing cuts of 105,000 jobs in the civil service? It was a while ago, so people may have forgotten - it was something called the Gershon review.

Well, that immediately became a dispute with the civil service unions, and has been bubbling on ever since. Those cuts are really beginning to bite - we've been losing staff hand over fist and services are becoming worse and worse. For people like me who joined the civil service because we thought we might be doing some good - good governance is an aim in itself - that's a serious consideration.

But it's not affected the Ministers who've simply encouraged their staff to work longer and longer hours, and who expect the former service from fewer and fewer staff - and nor has it saved the taxpayer a penny as civil service jobs are being covered by staff from temp. agencies who are themselves paid less but actually cost more, or by privatising services such as messengers and switchboard operators to companies with much worse track records in terms of job security. And again the staff working for those companies are generally paid less but the service costs more.

For more information see http://www.pcs.org.uk

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Sorry

liadnan, I know you don't want a general debate. But there is an alternative interpretation about why the PCS is striking.

A lot of civil servants sit around all day doing f*** all, surfing the web, just waiting for their nice big pensions to kick in. A lot of these civil servants have been shuffled around the civil service for years, in and out of jobs they are not skilled for, just because the civil service has never liked sacking anyone.

When Gershon announced his efficiency drive in 2004, a lot of these civil servants started worrying, with good reason. There is just no way the taxpayer can carry on subsidising the incompetence, inefficiencies, laziness and Spanish practices endemic in many parts of the civil service, and still get decent public services at the end of the day.

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