By silicon.com, 1 February 2005 13:45
Notorious as January is for being a slow news month, the media can always rely on one story that causes a stir - courtesy of the good old taxman.
If you've been reading silicon.com over the last couple of days or are one of thousands of taxpayers who struggled in vain to file their self-assessment tax returns online over the weekend, you'll know what we're talking about.
Once again the Inland Revenue's website creaked and groaned under the pressure as people rushed to submit their tax returns before the 31 January deadline in order to avoid a £100 late-filing penalty.
The taxman is standing firm, however, in stating that the site's performance will not be accepted as an excuse for returns being submitted late because slow as the site may have been at peak periods - when 5,000 returns an hour were being sent in - it never crashed.
In a rare display of compassion the Revenue has waived the £100 fine for some taxpayers who did not receive a 'submission failed' automated email response in time to resubmit it before the deadline due to a glitch with the Revenue's system.
We're not blind to the fact some accountants will be using the creaking tax return site simply as an excuse for their own tardiness in submitting returns. But when slowdowns continue to occur on 31 January five years after the online service launched, it has to be said that this is simply not good enough.
Every year without fail there are problems with either security or the site buckling under the weight of users. Last year over three-quarters of a million people filed their returns online - something of a success - but it is clear the Revenue's systems haven't kept up with this demand.
Unlike some organisations which may struggle to provide adequate bandwidth for their websites because of unexpected traffic peaks, the Inland Revenue knows the last weekend in January is always going to be busy - it's got all year to prepare for it.
When there are numerous technology answers to this, including 'bandwidth on demand' that can be rented, there is no excuse for the website failing. It is time the Revenue was called to account on this.
In the meantime we've already got 31 January 2006 down in the silicon.com news diary...
Comments
There are 12 comments. Join the discussion
1. Andy B
Come on now. You cant blame the Inland Revenue for this. People have had all year to get their tax returns in. If they are foolish enough to wait until the last minute they desereve all they get.
No system in the world, be it IT, Transport, Health or anything else can cope with all its users trying to use it at once.
2. Mark Thornton
Do we know which bloated IT company won the contract to build the IR website originally for a mere several billion pounds? Perhaps they should pay everyone's fines?
3. anonymous
I work in the commercial world of IT - far away from the ivory towers of government computing - but if I and my team provided the level of service that the IR provide we would soon be out jobhunting.
4. BT
>No system in the world, be it IT, Transport, Health or anything else can cope with all its users trying to use it at once.
I agree.
However, the system did send me an email when I submitted my return in December to say it had been accepted, when in fact it hadn't. Wonder ifI'd have got a fine if I hadn't double checked ???
5. anonymous
What a load of rubbish ! People know that there's huge demand from the last-minute lemmings, and yet they still leave it until the deadline. They don't benefit from such stupidity, it just gives them an excuse to whinge. If they want to go to an entertainment or sporting event that they know will be full, do they leave it until the last minute to get their tickets ?
6. Bernard Gore
Why does it take 7 days to register to use the site?
I intended to file using the site, but when I started the process middle of last week I discovered that you have to wait up to 7 days for them to send you a PIN by snail mail, so went back to using the paper version. Considering all the reports of problems I'm glad I did, but frustrated that these guys don't seem to have the first grasp of web technology.
7. Dick Vinegar
All together now. Let's do a denial of service attack on silicon.com, and wait until it starts bleating. We will accept no excuse when it crashes.
(Ed note: Don't really see the relevance of your suggestion? Where does a denial-of-service attack come into this? That is soon to be a criminal act. But the last time we looked, trying to file your tax returns is far from illegal?)
8. martyn
"No system in the world, be it IT, Transport, Health or anything else can cope with all its users trying to use it at once"
More IT gibberish - they have had a year to prepare for a totally predictable load and failed to do so.
9. anonymous
Cap Gemini too busy on business transformation and not doing day to day delivery. Does this ring a bell? Those of us who transferred across from EDS are now waiting for redundancy (more than 600 due in July)!! It will be even worse then
10. anonymous
So a question for those who want the IR to cater for the late-filing morons - if they were to resource to cater for the peaks, who would pay for that capacity ? Me the taxpayer, I guess. So if I'm paying for it, then I'd better damn well make sure that I use it, so I'll join the morons and file at the last minute next year. So their extra capacity won't prove to be enough, so the whingers will be at it again. The only real sustainable answer would be to give some form of small credit for filing early - as long as that didn't of itself create other peaks, of course !!!
11. John Kennard
Yes, people are "stupid" for waiting until the last minute (or in many cases, including my own, just too damn busy).
HOWEVER.
Even with the best will in the world, you can't change people. The problem of the Last Minute Rush will always exist.
And so will the problem (and expense) of a system that handles a trickle for 360 days and a tsunami for 5.
The solution is mind-numbingly obvious, doesn't need a "bloated IT company" to think up and doesn't take one iota of clever load-balancing technology:
Stagger. The. Deadline. Date.
There you are, IR - that's free advice. All I ask in return is that you take it ad act upon it so that I don't have to stay up until 3am to do my tax return next year.
12. anonymous
Is the Taxman writing most of these comments?
A deadline is just that! If I am asked to have something ready by a certain date/time, I have it ready. If my client is talking to another person at the time of the deadline I can wait but I will not be held responsible if the deadline passes while he is doing so.
If the client expects to be held up it is his responsibility to schedule the deadline for a more manageable date/time. Quite frankly the client should pay for any excess time incurred in satisfying his requirements if the delays are down to him.