{"id":259,"date":"2009-01-23T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-23T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.garfnet.org.uk\/cms\/uk-taxpayers-can-submit-tax-returns-online-using-open-source-software\/"},"modified":"2024-12-06T03:05:56","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T03:05:56","slug":"uk-taxpayers-can-submit-tax-returns-online-using-open-source-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garfnet.org.uk\/cms\/2009\/01\/23\/uk-taxpayers-can-submit-tax-returns-online-using-open-source-software\/","title":{"rendered":"UK taxpayers can submit tax returns online using GNUCash open source software"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just completed my UK tax return on-line today. At the end of it all, HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs) ask for some feedback. I thought that fans of open source software might be interested in my response:-<\/strong><\/p>\n

“This is certainly a great improvement over previous years. It actually saved me a lot of time. It took me a little under three hours from start to finish – though obviously I had already prepared my accounts in my accounts package. <\/em><\/p>\n

I was glad that the old paper-based tax guide calculation form was redundant. That was very time-consuming and error prone. I think the fact that your online system automatically does the calculations is a very good feature indeed. <\/em>However, the “help” system was not particularly clear. The explanation of cash vs GAAP was unintelligible!<\/em><\/p>\n

Moreover, I was annoyed to find that the server was down on the day I had taken off to do my return 2009-01-09. Considering the amount of money spent on this system, such failures are inexcusable.<\/em><\/p>\n

On the bright side, I run a non-Windows business and use no Microsoft products at all in <\/em>my book keeping. So I was delighted to find that all the features on your site required to complete my return worked perfectly on Ubuntu Linux c\/w Firefox. So it is good that HMRC has not forced its users to use Windows. I was even able to copy and paste figures from GnuCash<\/a> (an excellent free open source double entry accounting system) straight into my on-line return.<\/em><\/p>\n

Overall I think this year’s on-line service was fairly good. If you can improve the help system and the server reliability then you’ll have a very good system indeed.<\/em><\/p>\n

If your engineers need more information then please contact me via my site:- http:\/\/www.garfnet.org.uk\/contact<\/a>“
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Now, I’m not a big fan of Government IT. But when you consider the problems that some other countries have with submitting returns on line using open source software. e.g. Hungary<\/a> then I think HMRC has actually made a fairly reasonable job of it this time.<\/p>\n

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