Revenue Scotland Scottish Electronic Tax System upgrade Steps you can take to manage issues with SETS

Revenue Scotland have now upgraded the online tax collection system, known as SETS (Scottish Electronic Tax System). We are aware that users are experiencing difficulties with the new system. Read on for further information and suggested workarounds from our Tax Law Sub-Committee convener, Isobel d'Inverno and Property Law Convener, Deborah Lovell.

Issues with SETS

We are aware that users are experiencing a variety of difficulties with SETS 2 and we have been communicating with Revenue Scotland in relation to these.

Revenue Scotland are working on a number of issues, prioritising those caused by bugs or defects in the system over suggested improvements or enhancements.

In the first instance, you should contact Revenue Scotland if you are experiencing any difficulties with SETS.  Help and support is available to all users – you can contact the Revenue Scotland Support Desk by email or telephone on 03000 200 310.

Revenue Scotland are proactively contacting agents and firms that are regular, high volume users of the old SETS offering individual help and support. This service is available to all – please contact Revenue Scotland for help.

If you would also like to make us aware of any issues that you are experiencing, you can do so by emailing us or contacting us by telephone on 0131 226 8896 so that we can pass these issues on to Revenue Scotland as well.

Workarounds

There are a number of workarounds which may assist until these issues are resolved:

• Activation of account – we understand that the majority of users have now been able to access the system. If you still have not been able to log in to SETS2, please let us know so we can raise this with Revenue Scotland. In the event that you have requested but not received an activation token, check that the email has not made its way to your ‘spam’ box. The token is only valid for 15 minutes after issue. If emails are not in your Spam folder, please contact your IT contact to ensure emails from the domain ‘@revenue.scot’ have been whitelisted before trying the process again. Emails related to activation of account and regular sign in will be sent from ‘no-reply@revenue.scot’. Some characters may not be suitable in your password. We understand the following are suitable – ‘!’, ‘+’ and ‘&’.
• Receipts – the current electronic receipt does not contain details of the property involved. Revenue Scotland are working on a change so that the SETS 2 receipt will contain the same information as the previous electronic receipts.
• Saving draft returns – some users are experiencing difficulties when saving draft returns. Save the draft return at the start of the process before inserting any information, and then save again once you have completed the information. While it appears that saving a return may take you to the dashboard, clicking your browser’s ‘back’ button takes you back into the return. Take a note of the RS reference number so you can find the return later
• Searching for draft returns – we are aware of difficulties for users with the search function. When you save a draft, take a note of the Revenue Scotland reference number allocated and try searching using this reference.

• How to search for draft returns - scroll down to ‘draft returns’ in the dashboard and press ‘All returns’ at the bottom of this section. Enter the return reference and/or select ‘Show more filter options’ and insert part of the property description. In the event that you are not able to successfully search by using the reference number allocated to the draft, searching by the property description has been successful for some users.

• Purchaser’s email and telephone contact details are now mandatory– in the event that you do not have an email address or telephone number for the purchasers, or don’t have authority to provide these to Revenue Scotland, agent details can be inserted in these fields.

• The date of conclusion of missives is now mandatory – if there are no missives, insert the effective date

• Rent cannot be nil – for a rent-free period insert £1 per annum or similar to allow the return to be completed.

• Secure messaging system – the new secure message function is now available and being used by agents/firms. This is accessible via the Dashboard. If you experience difficulties, contact Revenue Scotland by email.

Paper returns

A reminder that from 19 July, all paper returns for LBTT must be submitted to Revenue Scotland instead of Registers of Scotland. We understand that there will be a 30-day transition period (up to 16 August) whereby any returns sent to Registers of Scotland will be forwarded to Revenue Scotland directly; following that period, returns incorrectly sent to Registers of Scotland will be returned to the submitting party.

All paper returns should be accompanied by cheque payment of any tax due. Cheques should be made payable to Revenue Scotland.

Any and all additional or supplementary cheques should now be sent to Revenue Scotland, not Registers of Scotland.

You can find further details on the new system on Revenue Scotland’s website.