Bouleversee wrote:Thanks for the education, Geng. I had rather assumed tax advisers/accountants would do everything online.
At least the vast majority of them certainly do, yes. But as far as I can see in the online tax returns I have saved in the past, the end result of the online submission process is the same as the paper return, just in PDF form with the various boxes, etc, filled in electronically rather than being written / typed on a paper printout. So tax advisers/accountants will want the "Reference" area to be on the tax return form, even if they only actually use it in the PDFs that online submission produces and not in the 'template' PDF that one can download and print out for a paper return.
HMRC could of course make the 'template' PDF be a slightly simplified version of what's produced by the online system that omits the "Reference" area - but that would just mean that they would end up with twice as many tax return layouts to maintain. And there probably are a few tax return submitters who would be seriously annoyed by it - e.g. the fairly small number of individuals who have a use for the "Reference" area probably include an even smaller number who distrust the online system to the extent of refusing to use it, and there may still be a few tax advisers in business who are 'stuck in the 20th century'.
Incidentally, I suspect the "For" and "Telephone" areas are also mainly for tax advisers/accountants, especially large firms, so that they can give contact details for the person handling the case. And I should add that those details and the "Reference" do appear later in the return (page 7) - but clearly having them at the top of the tax return as well is convenient compared with having to scroll / leaf through the return to find them.
Gengulphus