No more prepaid envelopes as HMRC encourages online filing

HMRC is continuing its campaign to encourage taxpayers to file online by phasing out the prepaid envelopes normally supplied with self assessment forms.

UHY Hacker Young, the accounting group, says that although taxpayers are unlikely to suffer a great deal from the change, it does "indicate how little regard HMRC has towards giving what it calls its 'customers' a choice".

Roy Maugham, Tax Partner, of UHY Hacker Young said: “This is unfortunate timing as HMRC’s recent data loss scandal is still fresh in everyone’s mind. You would think that they would be a bit more sensitive to taxpayers’ concerns before they tried to railroad them all into filing online.”

“There are still quite a few personal and business taxpayers who either don’t have access to broadband or who are still very nervous about lodging sensitive financial information online.”

“Perhaps when HMRC has built up some more credibility for data security and its online filing systems became a little less prone to crash then this kind of move could be viewed as less controversial.”

From October 1 all taxpayers sending cheques or VAT returns made out in hard copy will have to pay for postage. UHY Hacker Young says this will naturally impact small businesses the most.

HMRC says that their phasing out of prepaid envelopes follows the example of other private and public sector organisations which no longer issue prepaid envelopes.

Roy Maugham says: “It seems strange that HMRC compare themselves with companies or other parts of the public sector. They are very different. The customer gets to choose which company they deal with and usually have the right not to draw on public services.”