The continuing story…

Having discovered today that:

1. The software we received a week or two ago enabling our bookkeeping program to produce form 856 (on reportable non salary payments) electronically indeed works as regards sending the electronic data but there would appear to have been a breakdown in communication between the income tax people and the software lot so, er, they didn't realise they had to also generate a form for you to sign and a hard copy summary of the monthly or bimonthly reports we submitted for you.
2. The new software we received recently (from a different provider) which purported to produce the electronic form 126 (on salaries) has not been completely debugged. I am about to download a patch, but it is already the end of May and who knows whether this is the complete job or not?

I was delighted to receive information that the tax office will not levy any sanctions on reports submitted by JULY 31. And this after I have wasted the last 24 hours fighting the computers trying to get them to produce your reports before the end of this month.

Still 'n' all, dipping into "Accountancy", the journal of the British profession, I note that one of the biggest complaints of general practitioners there is that their tax office can never get the software for online filing right to the extent that many of them won't touch it, so the fact that ours worked very nicely in previous years should count for something.