El Andalous - UK Tax Return

 

Birds in a Queue (Just Like Me!)

I’ve given you a fortnight’s rest from my admin woes, so I think I can return to regaling you with my problems. This blog was supposed to be about me leading my dream life, but admin always gets in the way. When you’re growing up, no-one ever tells you that your life will be dominated by admin.

It’s hard enough to get round to doing my UK tax return. If I was organized, I’d be putting all my rental incomings and outgoings on my spreadsheet as they came through. Instead, I leave it until my tax return is due and then have to scour through all my emails to find the information. I do have email folders, but I’m not even that disciplined with filing the mail as I receive it.

However, I have a little bit of geek in me, and once I get started, I quite like seeing how my finances have progressed (or not). Some years it’s been a wake-up call to reduce my bills or to make sure the letting agencies are on the ball.

What I hadn’t anticipated, though, was that I’d have problems getting onto the HMRC self-assessment site. I tried to login, but for some reason the telephone verification code would never come through. It worked perfectly well last year, with the very same phone number I have now, so it shouldn’t have been an issue.

I emailed them, but they said to see my internet provider. My internet provider told me the problem was with HMRC. I emailed again and I was asked to phone, only the phone number didn’t work. Or was it my phone didn’t work? I can’t remember now.

Anyway, I finally got the number to call, plus put credit on my phone. The first four or five times, an automatic message just cut me off, saying they were too busy.

By this time, I was getting desperate.  I found an accountant who could submit it for me at the last minute if I had no luck. That at least gave me some peace of mind.

I finally got through to the waiting queue. That felt like a major success. Only I waited ten minutes and then my credit ran out. Ugh. I recharged my phone and tried again. Once more, I was cut off immediately. I finally got through, waited twenty minutes, but again my credit ran out.

The local shop only has limited quantities you can top up with, so I went into the shopping mall to the proper shop and got a huge top up there.

Back home and same old rigmarole. I finally got through. The guy on the other end said he’d done something and I needed to follow the instructions when I next logged in. I was not really sure what he meant but he seemed to think it would be obvious. He didn’t realise he was speaking to me.

I logged in and there was a new option available to set up a new account, so I decided that’s what he meant. Only it didn’t work. I tried to set it up using the authentication app (how modern of me!) rather than the phone code. But you couldn’t use the app if you lived abroad; you had to phone up and ask for assistance. Ugh.

So, it was back to phoning HMRC yet again. Same old rigmarole. Finally, I got through to a lady who told me I shouldn’t have set up a new account and she’d have to delete it. Oops. Fortunately, she stayed on the phone and talked me through what I should have done and, hey presto, I was in my account. I can’t explain how relieved I was. Even when I accidentally logged out, I was able to login again using the app. Phew.

I’m still a bit suspicious of this app, to be honest, but for this year, at least, it worked. Next time, I’m going to fill my tax return in early!