Dear IRD - your site really really sucks. And here is another reason why it sucks...

Forums › IT Pro and developers › Dear IRD - your site really really sucks. And here is another reason why it sucks...

1 | 2

Batwing

668 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#1115625 26-Aug-2014 07:59

Last time I tried to use IRD website I was prompted to log in at every link I clicked. I tried this from work, home and my mother's place. All different versions of windows and tried Chrome/Firefox and IE and definitely didn't have noscript installed on any of them, adblock installed only in 1/6 of the scenarios. Luckily I don't actually need to use it any longer.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

nunz

1421 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1117296 28-Aug-2014 15:08

TimA: Have you tried calling them?

^Good luck

I've tried a different pc, browser, internet connection etc etc. Their site regularly screws up.

As for an accountant. I've had a couple, one of them didn't file returns on time leaving me with bills to pay and another one filed me as a zero income return leaving me having to pay back working for families tax. The nil return came about as I had lost a truck load of money after the earthquakes. that left me tax credits. Tax credits applied from the year I lost money were applied to tax owing in the next year when I made money leaving me a zero tax balance to pay. The IRD viewed that as me having earned no money Duh!!!! and charged 15k worth of weekly payments on a 5k working for families tax credit. I expect accountants to know that stuff and not leave me with bills I shouldn't have. Having fought the IRd to knock the bill down to the 5k owed plus interest which might be returned I still find myself in the position of having had professional services that cost me more than doing it myself.

I could tell you about the third accountant who went out of business and lost all our paperwork. and no, they weren't cheap. One of them was a a big name accountant, one was SBA franchise and one was about 3k per year.

At the risk of sounding like an advert - we now use freshbooks for our invoicing, cashbook complete for books and Acepayroll for our paye. It works, its quick and whats more it costs me way less.

charsleysa

597 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1117299 28-Aug-2014 15:19

nunz:
TimA: Have you tried calling them?

^Good luck

I've tried a different pc, browser, internet connection etc etc. Their site regularly screws up.

As for an accountant. I've had a couple, one of them didn't file returns on time leaving me with bills to pay and another one filed me as a zero income return leaving me having to pay back working for families tax. The nil return came about as I had lost a truck load of money after the earthquakes. that left me tax credits. Tax credits applied from the year I lost money were applied to tax owing in the next year when I made money leaving me a zero tax balance to pay. The IRD viewed that as me having earned no money Duh!!!! and charged 15k worth of weekly payments on a 5k working for families tax credit. I expect accountants to know that stuff and not leave me with bills I shouldn't have. Having fought the IRd to knock the bill down to the 5k owed plus interest which might be returned I still find myself in the position of having had professional services that cost me more than doing it myself.

I could tell you about the third accountant who went out of business and lost all our paperwork. and no, they weren't cheap. One of them was a a big name accountant, one was SBA franchise and one was about 3k per year.

At the risk of sounding like an advert - we now use freshbooks for our invoicing, cashbook complete for books and Acepayroll for our paye. It works, its quick and whats more it costs me way less.

Well not to sound rude but your story doesn't add up. Maybe it's the lack of information about your particular situation but if you don't make money then the IRD doesn't charge you, otherwise I'd be thousands of dollars in debt. Anyway I still don't see how the IRD website can be screwing up for you so much, there must be something specific to you because I just logged in and filled a nil GST101 with no problems at all in less than 2 minutes.

EDIT: if you are still having these problems how about you take screenshots and post them here. (sensitive information can be blurred of course).

Regards
Stefan Andres Charsley

nunz

1421 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1117645 29-Aug-2014 00:03

charsleysa:
nunz:
TimA: Have you tried calling them?

^Good luck

I've tried a different pc, browser, internet connection etc etc. Their site regularly screws up.

As for an accountant. I've had a couple, one of them didn't file returns on time leaving me with bills to pay and another one filed me as a zero income return leaving me having to pay back working for families tax. The nil return came about as I had lost a truck load of money after the earthquakes. that left me tax credits. Tax credits applied from the year I lost money were applied to tax owing in the next year when I made money leaving me a zero tax balance to pay. The IRD viewed that as me having earned no money Duh!!!! and charged 15k worth of weekly payments on a 5k working for families tax credit. I expect accountants to know that stuff and not leave me with bills I shouldn't have. Having fought the IRd to knock the bill down to the 5k owed plus interest which might be returned I still find myself in the position of having had professional services that cost me more than doing it myself.

I could tell you about the third accountant who went out of business and lost all our paperwork. and no, they weren't cheap. One of them was a a big name accountant, one was SBA franchise and one was about 3k per year.

At the risk of sounding like an advert - we now use freshbooks for our invoicing, cashbook complete for books and Acepayroll for our paye. It works, its quick and whats more it costs me way less.

Well not to sound rude but your story doesn't add up. Maybe it's the lack of information about your particular situation but if you don't make money then the IRD doesn't charge you, otherwise I'd be thousands of dollars in debt. Anyway I still don't see how the IRD website can be screwing up for you so much, there must be something specific to you because I just logged in and filled a nil GST101 with no problems at all in less than 2 minutes.

EDIT: if you are still having these problems how about you take screenshots and post them here. (sensitive information can be blurred of course).

I have a flash capture - taken in wink as every time i deal with the ird now i capture it using wink as there are so name screw ups.
I filed my gst return today and it took three goes. The first two returned a 503 error - servr unavailble or out of resources.

Also you didnt read the aobve properly. I did make money, and using credits from the year previous wher i lost money, offset what i had to pay against tax credits. therefore meaning even though i earned money i had no tax liability owing to losses the year before. THe earthquake cost me over 50-70k in losses - makes for a nice tax credit - about the only good thing that came from that mess.

so i did earn money - therfroe am eligable for working for families, had received wff, but the ird ruled that as i had zero tak liability by using previous years tax credits i hadnt really worked or earned (wehich is bollocks) and so took wff back.

funnily enough the next year they realised what a screw up that was - and changed the rules while still demanding interest and penalties for those of us cuaght by their screw up the year previously. Also my wife was told to payback 150 per week for two year = 15k on a 5k wff tax credit. THey have since apologised for scrwwing up their calcs and reduced it to the origianl amount plus heft interest.

Lastly - look three posts up at batwing - describing the same issues i have had. im not the only one.

charsleysa

597 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1117651 29-Aug-2014 00:16

I'm wondering whether the issue may be related to transport, such as a certain ISP having issues.

This should be easily determined by utilizing mobile broadband the next time you file a return.
If it's successful without issues then it's something to do with your internet connection.

Regards
Stefan Andres Charsley

bigal_nz

635 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#1117680 29-Aug-2014 07:40

TimA: Have you tried calling them?

^Good luck

Hahahahahaha - calling IRD - yeah right.

bigal_nz

635 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#1117681 29-Aug-2014 07:41

nunz: Your website is inconsistent in the way it asks for and deals with ird numbers .

For example, your 'I've forgotten my ird user name' page will only respond if ird numbers are input with hyphens between the numbers in a certain place, for example you need to enter them as 123-456-789 or 12-345-678

Your 'I've forgotten my password' page will not accept your ird number, giving a message that it is an incorrect ird username / number mixture, if hypens are put into the ird number entry.

IE force me to do things one way then punish me when I do.

My suggestion is the following should be put in place to resolve these issue for your clients:

1 - A set of development standards for entry for all web and other client facing portals. The standards should cover off data entry requirements, password requirements, naming requirements etc etc etc.

They would cover - entry of usernames / case sensitivity, space removal etc.
They would cover off the input of ird numbers, monetary values, dates etc.
They would cover off the requirements to trim entry to remove spaces, the turning of all entries into lower or upper-case to make entries case insensitive, the use of different separators in dates, etc etc
2 - Develop a set of libraries encapsulating a set of rukes and functionalities to ensure the above standards are met. This would also ensure safety and consistency in all development work

3 - Test the above at every dev release to ensure these standards are met.

At present your entry standards are a shambles and are a major impediment to people who are trying to navigate your systems.

Now - should I get stuck into them for the complete bollocks of a navigation system they have, the fact you have to log in repeatedly as it keeps leading you to pages outside the login area them making you re-authenticate to get back in, or their reallu really user unfriendly system for otherly enabled users. (5 known and 514 potential preoblems with accessibility on the front page alone). sheesh -

Should I mention the number of error messages received after submitting forms? or the page time outs getting reposnses?

How do other govt depts stack up?

Yes there site sucks.

I havent had your problems, but it is slow, they take 5 days to reply to a "secure mail" system that doesnt allow attachments.

Its bad.

MadEngineer

4238 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1120877 2-Sep-2014 22:38

This pretty much sums it up. Problem I noted down a few years ago but it's often still the same:

ird: no, you can't do it online:

10 www.ird.govt.nz
20 login (opens new window, ive already logged in so it takes me past the promt for u/p)
40 submit returns (opens new window)
50 click IR3 individual income tax return 2010
60 click start (opens new window)
70 prompted for u/p
80 GOTO 40

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

DravidDavid

1907 posts

Uber Geek

#1120914 3-Sep-2014 01:04

TimA:
1eStar: [warning sarcasm] Try a different browser, ie8 will probably work. [/warning sarcasm]

This works every time for me.

Here come the Photoshop police! Nice try though, haha :)

nunz

1421 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1122651 5-Sep-2014 16:27

The IRD have replied.

Their official response is that there are certain things you cannot do on their site using Internet Explorer.

Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.

1 - All Govt Depts have used IE as their only web browser for ever.
2 - It is the standard testing platform for all web dev in Govt Depts
3 - Many Govt depts wont let you use or install other browsers
4 - Most of the IRDs users are business people who use a Microsoft Platform with IE.

Now as much as I dislike IE for a number of reasons - ....dumb dumb and dumber!!!!!

charsleysa

597 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1122692 5-Sep-2014 17:49

nunz: The IRD have replied.

Their official response is that there are certain things you cannot do on their site using Internet Explorer.

Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.

1 - All Govt Depts have used IE as their only web browser for ever.
2 - It is the standard testing platform for all web dev in Govt Depts
3 - Many Govt depts wont let you use or install other browsers
4 - Most of the IRDs users are business people who use a Microsoft Platform with IE.

Now as much as I dislike IE for a number of reasons - ....dumb dumb and dumber!!!!!

Yes tell them that's an especially retarded response since even their HTML code contains special compatibility files for IE 5 and above.

Also IE11 supports HTML5, CSS3, etc, so no website should have a problem showing on IE11.

Regards
Stefan Andres Charsley

nunz

1421 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1123345 6-Sep-2014 20:49

Dairyxox: Im not a fan of their website, but it sounds like you're doing something wrong to me.
The terminology they use in the process of getting anything done is baffling, but i've done quite a few things on the ird website and none of the weird stuff you're seeing is normal.

Sounds like maybe your session is expiring in-between form submissions?

For all the doubters out there :)

Having logged in, trying to file my IR3 - for the fifth time as they have lost it on their site the last time.

http://virusbusters.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ird-bollocks-two.swf

Please note the times show i have logged in, I can see myir file links, I can go to the ir3 online links, i can click login nad it goes around in circles.

This time i didn't use IE as per their suggestion but used FF. Two different computers, no add ons, no ant virus on one pc and Nod32 on the other.

fibre connection - nice nad fast.

charsleysa

597 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1123350 6-Sep-2014 21:02

nunz:
Dairyxox: Im not a fan of their website, but it sounds like you're doing something wrong to me.
The terminology they use in the process of getting anything done is baffling, but i've done quite a few things on the ird website and none of the weird stuff you're seeing is normal.

Sounds like maybe your session is expiring in-between form submissions?

For all the doubters out there :)

Having logged in, trying to file my IR3 - for the fifth time as they have lost it on their site the last time.

http://virusbusters.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ird-bollocks-two.swf

Please note the times show i have logged in, I can see myir file links, I can go to the ir3 online links, i can click login nad it goes around in circles.

This time i didn't use IE as per their suggestion but used FF. Two different computers, no add ons, no ant virus on one pc and Nod32 on the other.

fibre connection - nice nad fast.

Thanks for the swf, would be easier to show you what's wrong if you had just uploaded a video to youtube or something but we shall proceed!

Yes, the IRD website sucks because it isn't terribly friendly. The reason it keeps doing that is because you are clicking the wrong link, but that's not your fault the website is terribly misleading.

What you are clicking is an external link (which for some awful reason they have listed under forms even when you are logged in).

If you mouse over the link you are about to click you will notice that at the bottom lefthand corner of your browser there will appear a URL.

If the URL does not contain the section "e-services" somewhere at the beginning then you are going to the external site which is most likely NOT where you want to go.

Regards
Stefan Andres Charsley

nunz

1421 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1657040 24-Oct-2016 17:27

A long time later ...

I had follow up questions regarding returns with the IRD - and while some of their changes are excellent ( IR3 / IR4 returns online) some things are still not easy.

The gentleman on the IRD site said they too, internally have problems with functionality on their site, need to re-login, get asked for log ins a lot and get logged out if they have to go from one part of the site to the other.

Still double thumbs up - it is getting better.

1 | 2