HMRC have contacted Chartered Accountants Ireland seeking agents as volunteers to assist with user research and user testing to inform the design of new digital services for agents. The new service will enable agents, provided they have appropriate authorisation, to access the PAYE accounts for their employer clients and view their liabilities and payments - once they have confirmed the accuracy of the client list that HMRC will present to them.

HMRC are now getting ready to trial (through a ‘private beta’ release - probably in the Spring) the first service and would like to build up the volunteer pool to include more agents with employer PAYE clients.

HMRC are asking agents who might be interested to complete a questionnaire. Agents who would like to get involved can sign up by simply following the link therein. The questionnaire should only take a couple of minutes to complete but will give HMRC some information about the agents’ business to ensure that a wide range of agents (with employer PAYE clients) is selected to take part. Only a small number of agents will be invited into the ‘private beta’ trial at first but HMRC will look to include more as the service ramps up, develops and improves.

The questionnaire will remain available for completion until 28th Feb 2015.