The service will not be available until after the 31 January 2018 self assessment online tax returns deadline, despite HMRC issuing a notice on 12 December indicating that the new API would be available shortly.

HMRC has now informed ICAEW's Tax Faculty that the rollout will be delayed.

The APIs, which have been trialled by some software providers since April 2017, allow access to client data including employments, PAYE income and deductions, taxable benefits, Class 2 NICs and marriage allowance.

Despite indicating on 12 December in HMRC Agent Update: issue 63 that the API service would be available for agents in public beta form in time for the self assessment filing peak, HMRC has now told ICAEW that the self assessment pre-population service will remain in private beta over the self assessment peak.

HMRC does not expect any more software developers to integrate with this service leading up to the peak and to ensure its stability does not want to make any changes to the status.

Personal identity verification check

One of the reasons for the delay is a requirement for tighter security to protect data.

HMRC has recently introduced an additional security step for those agents and software providers who are already using the private beta service.

Before using the APIs, agents now need to pass a personal identity verification check.

Agents have to do this once every 18 months and once per agent self assessment code, not every time they use the service.

Agents will need to answer some questions based on data HMRC holds, such as details from their UK passport or most recent P60.

‘Some agents have been having difficulties with the new personal identity verification check. The service will remain in private beta until the strategic solution to ensure that agent access is secure is available,’ according to the latest ICAEW Tax Faculty blog.

‘The APIs give access to very sensitive income and tax data which, in the wrong hands, could be used for identity theft. Organised criminals target tax agents, so the threat is very real and, frustrating as it may be for agents, it is important that HMRC takes the appropriate measures to protect data.’

Pre-populated data

There also issues around the accuracy of the pre-populated dated uploaded by HMRC.

ICAEW members who are using the private beta service have reported two issues:

Pensions being incorrectly reported as employments. This issue arises from the real time information (RTI) submission and needs to be resolved by each pension provider and HMRC.

Only one pension figure is pulled across and this means that agents cannot report the required analysis in the white space and cannot check the figures to the taxpayer’s records.

It is hoped that this issue will be resolved in a second release in 2018 but it is not yet certain that HMRC will allocate the necessary funding for this, ICAEW warned.

HMRC SA Pre-Population APIs - Frequently Asked Questions - HMRC FAQs Version 1.0, issued by HMRC 5/12/2017

ICAEW Tax Faculty Team blog 20 December 2017

Report by Sara White