Filing by Internet in the UK - The barriers to filing self-assessment tax returns by the Internet

This article considers the extensive findings from the study of Filing by Internet (FBI) 1 for individual self-assessment tax returns within the overall framework of the Government's ambitious targets for adoption of FBI over the next five years. It considers the current position in order to evaluate the implementation of FBI to date. The article presents a selection of the detailed results from the study 2 into the adoption of FBI by 984 tax advisers who are members of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) and Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT). The findings show that tax advisers are reluctant to adopt FBI for their clients and the article analyses in detail the proposals for changes made by tax advisers involved in the day-to-day operations. It then goes on to explore the barriers to meeting the Government's adoption targets for FBI.
Although there is an overall acceptance that FBI will be adopted eventually and will ultimately become best practice, there is an urgent need to address the barriers to adoption and this article sets out the main issues.