Revenue and Customs puts tax help online

Department furthers online engagement with taxpayers

HMRC is putting services online

HM Revenue and Customs has launched two online toolkits to help tax agents avoid common errors when filing tax returns.

The kits cover Capital Gains Tax and personal and private expenditure, and include checklists and explanatory notes, and examples of classic errors and how to avoid them.

Three other toolkits are already available to help people navigate Capital Gains Tax for Trust and Estates, marginal small company relief and capital allowances for plant machinery. More toolkits will follow next year.

Brian Redford, Head of HMRC’s agents and employers service improvement programme, said: "The toolkits are based on the most common errors we see and will help agents get returns right first time, which will reduce the need for compliance checks. "

The toolkits are part of a wider HMRC approach to use the internet to engage with those paying tax.

Last week Dave Hartnett, permanent secretary for tax at HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), posted a video warning about tax dodging on YouTube.

And the department has encouraged the filing of Income Tax Self Assessment returns online, which saved an estimated £5m in processing costs in 2007-08.

In May a report from the National Audit Office called on HMRC to widen the provision of online tax services to save money and reduce the levels of errors in tax returns.