Collecting customer data the main barrier to HMRC’s Single Customer Accounts, ICAEW says

Connecting the data in HMRC’s legacy systems for the new system, which is intended to be the central hub for all HMRC services, is the greatest obstacle it faces, according to Caroline Miskin, senior technical manager of digital taxation at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).  

HMRC believe the Single Customer Account (SCA) will make it easier for taxpayers to view and manage their tax affairs.

“Having a customer be able to go in and have all our HMRC information on one app, on one service, means HMRC has a huge amount of work to do to connect data behind the scenes, and create what they’re calling is a unique customer record,” says Miskin.      

 At the Public Accounts Committee Progress with MTD session on June 19, 2023, Jim Harra, managing director at HMRC, spoke about the complexities of legacy systems.   

 “Looking back, we announced this and, while the concept was good, we had not done all the work to identify the complexity of trying to deliver it on the legacy systems or, failing that, having to re-platform those systems. 

 “Also, the complexity of migrating data from old systems and the quality of that data meant that it was not a simple matter of migrating it. While we have completed the task now for migrating VAT data, that took considerably longer and more effort than we had envisaged that it would.”   

The intricacies of legacy systems was highlighted by Miskin also and she says: “We’re all hearing loads about legacy systems at the moment – it was a major topic of the MTD session on Monday. 

Records for national insurance and tax credits are all documented on back-end legacy systems, states Miskin.   

“For HMRC to be able to give you a nice front end with all this. It must be all joined up in the background as well and that’s actually the hard part.”   

Individual SCA’s Expected for individual taxpayers in 2025   

In the next two years, Miskin expects the digital accounts to be available for only individual taxpayers, with business taxpayers required to wait longer for the service to be open to them.  

Miskin adds that, although the project might take up to a decade to become available to all tax groups, it is unlikely that there will be a definitive delivery date given the continuous advancements in technology. 

“Don’t expect a big launch, don’t expect lots of comms pushing it, it is going to be subtle, it’s going to be iterative, it’s going to be gradually built.  

“I think that is absolutely the right way to do it. Otherwise, it risks being underwhelming.”   

Gov.uk One Login   

HMRC faces a challenging task of having everything sorted by 2025, and Miskin states that HMRC’s target of 2025 may be “ambitious”. She notes that many individuals are currently encountering issues with their government gateway identification. However, the arrival of the GOV.uk One Login will help alleviate these problems, according to Miskin.    

With GOV.UK One Login, individuals can create an account, sign in, and verify their identity, granting them access to various government services online.  

There are already eight services using GOV.UK One Login, with both passport and driver’s licenses being eligible for the identity check.   

“We are going to get some time this summer for the gov.uk One Login, the across government service. That is going to start to be adopted over the summer, and it is starting to be in place in the background already,” Miskin says.   

“Security has got to be a primary concern behind this, and I think it is for HMRC.”