Income tax self-assessment: a rant

I have just finished filing my tax return for the 2007-08 year, using the online "service" provided by HMRC. This is the third year I have done it online and I cannot remember it being this difficult before.

I'll preface this by saying that I have over 40 years' experience in designing computer systems. The self-assessment system has these design and usability faults which delayed my successful completion of the form:

• The self-employment section asks for your turnover, and in the next box for 'any other business income'. I had none, so I entered £0.00 — how was I to know that I should have left it blank?
• Having learned that lesson, there were several boxes which weren't relevant to me so I left them blank. There was a supplementary question about these irrelevant boxes which wanted the answer Yes or No but I skipped them ... mistake number two! I had to answer a rather pointless No.
• In the unlikely event that the Revenue owe me money, they ask for my bank account details. Now my bank statements and cheque book both say my sort code is 30-95-76 so that's what I entered. Another error, they wanted 309576.
• Next, the gift aid section. As far as I can work out there's no point in filling this in unless you earn enough to get into the 40% tax band, (which I don't) when you can claim some extra tax relief. Remember all those places you visited 18 months ago run by charities, who ask you to pay a small premium so they can claim back the gift aid? Did you make a note of it? No, so you have to estimate it.
• Almost finished. I noticed that the response time is dire, no doubt because everybody else is trying to do this on a Sunday evening. I dread to think what the response time will be as the deadline gets hours rather than weeks away.
• Last thing: the box for extra information. I wanted to tell them about the gift aid estimate. I also wanted to tell them about the two directorships I hold, neither remunerated, in case a smart official cross-references tax returns with information on file at Companies House. So I tell them all this, which takes up about half the space in the input box, and press next. And get a tax return update failure which lists the three possible reasons. None of which applies to me. So I log off and leave it to the morning.
• Logging on this morning the same thing happens. When I finally get through to the technical helpdesk, a very helpful Glaswegian suggests, almost immediately, that the reason was that my extra information exceeded 256 characters. Which it turns out was the problem. Not that there was anything about a limit on the form that I could see. Or a countdown of characters left.

Most of these are considerable annoyances but the last one is a showstopper. Anybody hitting this one as the deadline approaches could well go past it and incur the automatic £100 penalty. Don't they test these things? (I'm asking you, helenraven , I think they could use your services.)

Security Conscious

Here's the latest from the Playmobil range, unfortunately not available for export outside the USA due no doubt to restrictions placed by the Department for Homeland Security:

"The woman traveler stops by the security checkpoint. After placing her luggage on the screening machine, the airport employee checks her baggage. The traveler hands her spare change and watch to the security guard and proceeds through the metal detector. With no time to spare, she picks up her luggage and hurries to board her flight!"

Anyhow, it's yours for a mere $55, and if you hurry over to the Amazon.com site you can, and should, read how much this is appreciated by those who can get their hands on it, for example "I like the basic idea. I applaud Playmobile for attempting to provide us with the tools we need to teach our children to unquestioningly obey the commands of the State Security Apparatus..." though some had reservations " This is just a sop to the authoritarians among us. I am holding out for the release of the Guantanemo Playset."

The enthusiastic response to this item is in distinct contrast to the thumbs-down given earlier to that classic A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates from the RAND Corporation, now with Look Inside!