SEISS: Make sure clients download the calculations

No doubt in a few weeks we will be hitting the keyboards to work through the next traunch of the Furlough claims for our clients secure in the knowledge that the money is finding its way to our client’s accounts and that staff are being paid the money they desperately need in these difficult times.

Some have charged for the service and some have not and whatever the decision regarding charging the fact is we have fulfilled our client’s wishes and worked diligently and effectively and succeeded in getting the funds to the client.

It’s what we do isn’t it? It’s what client’s pay us for isn’t it?

But to quote the title of one of my favourite Barclay James Harvest tracks “That was then this is now” The furlough scheme is the past now we have the SEISS and as we all know by now we are not able to make the claims on behalf of our clients. From Wednesday 13th the scheme will open and our clients will be using their newly acquired gateway to make the claims.

Already we have taken lots of calls and emails from clients regarding the process of getting a gateway id and some may say that this time alone is more than it would have taken to simply go in using our own gateway and do the necessary but we are ready and primed for the next stage.

At this point like an awful lot of HMRC’s recent output we are shy on the detail but we know that when the client makes the claim using their gateway login they will be provided with the calculation and the wherewithal to appeal if they believe it’s incorrect.

Presumably, this calculation and be downloaded or printed or saved but that is uncertain BUT what is certain is that the vast majority of our clients will then come to us and ask “I got £**** is it right?”. Having the calculation makes checking significantly easier we all know this, but will we have access to the calculation? As the client is using their gateway in the first place it would appear to be unlikely that we will so the fact is we must stress to the client to download, print or save the calculation or they will have to go back in again to get it, presuming of course that it will remain available via their gateway.

Naturally, it would make sense to at least make the calculations available to Agents via their own gateway which of course enable us to do our job but I was forgetting that HMRC don’t actually want us to do what our client’s want us to do.