CGT property reporting tip

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ICAEW’s Tax Faculty has become aware of a possible solution for users receiving a repeated error message when reporting CGT on UK residential property disposals. It may also work for other HMRC services.

If you are repeatedly getting the message "sorry we are experiencing technical difficulties, please try again in a few minutes" when attempting to use HMRC’s capital gains tax (CGT) UK property reporting service, it may be that the taxpayer’s address is not correctly populated in HMRC’s systems.

If you live in the UK

Check and if necessary, update the address held in your personal tax account. From https://www.gov.uk/log-in-register-hmrc-online-services sign in and select “profile and settings” at the top of the page. Then select “change” from alongside the main address. When entering the address ensure that the postcode is entered in the postcode field, and not within a field above this one. The account homepage may appear to show the correct address but it’s critical that the postcode field is correctly populated.

Once the address has been checked and corrected, allow 24 hours before using the CGT reporting service.

If you live abroad

Check and if necessary, update the address held in your personal tax account. From https://www.gov.uk/log-in-register-hmrc-online-services sign in and select “profile and settings” at the top of the page. Then select “change” from alongside the main address. If you also have a correspondence address do the same for that address. When entering the address ensure that your country of residence is entered in the “country” field and not within a field above this one. If you start typing in the box, a drop down of countries to select from should appear. Select the relevant country and then save the address entered. The account homepage may appear to show the correct address but it’s critical that the country field is correctly populated.

Once the address has been checked and corrected, allow 24 hours before using the CGT reporting service.

If you encounter a problem when trying to correct address details, contact the income tax helpline on 0300 200 3300.

This may also be a solution to problems with other HMRC services which ask for a postcode or country of residence.

Tax Faculty

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