Hope for stamp duty improvements
19 Sep 05
New online facility better but still room for improvement
The Law Society of Scotland has said that the new online facility for submitting stamp duty land tax returns is promising, although it is still too early to say if delays and other problems have been completely ironed out, according to an article in today's Herald.
Isobel D'Inverno, convener of the Society's Tax Law Committee, said there were still a few glitches to the HM Revenue & Customs system, including instances where the system was "busy", presumably because too many people were trying to get through the HMRC gateway.
She also pointed out that because the system did not have a direct debit or payment facility, members still had to send a cheque in the post once they had their return number. The Society would be monitoring the system's progress and keeping members informed.
"Online submission should also have been available from the start, but the authorities decided they weren't ready to offer it," she added.
The Society had claimed that many forms had been delayed or rejected because of inaccurate scanning by HMRC. HMRC in turn said the problems were caused by inaccurate scanning by solicitors.
The Society has negotiated a 16th-day emergency procedure to allow solicitors to deal directly with the Edinburgh stamp office in delayed cases to meet the 21-day deadline for registering property titles.
However, after September, solicitors will no longer be able to use the online print and post version, only the online submission service.