Free modem offer leaves accountants cold
In an effort to kickstart interest in its Electronic Lodgement Service (ELS), a scheme to encourage the digital submission of tax returns, the Inland Revenue is offering accountants free modems.

Currently under consideration by the ELS Business Forum, accountants will be supplied with a free modem if they commit to file 100 returns a year by ELS.

"They must be concerned that there's not enough incentive for firms to take it up," said Philip Parish, tax manager for Baker Tilly Chartered Accountants. "A free modem won't influence us in any way," he said. ELS is due to go live in April 1997 (Network News, 8 May).

The move also suggests a lack of networking in the accountancy industry. However, a Price Waterhouse insider said: "Who needs a free modem? If the IR had any sense, we would be able to send in returns through our email system. All it would need is a [Lotus] Notes database, downloaded to the revenue every night."

The IR is looking at either supplying accountants directly with the modems or offering the modems through tie-up deals with the tax software manufacturers.

Many accountants say they are still keeping an open mind about whether they will use the system, but even the IR is unsure about market reaction to the scheme.

"At a general level it's difficult to gauge," said Adrian Mark, ELS requirements manager for the Inland Revenue. "Some say they won't use it unless there's something in it for them and a perception that costs are involved," he said.

"ELS is largely of benefit to the IR, we're not going to benefit from it," said Edwin Vidler, technical secretary of the tax faculty of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. "We welcome the realisation that the only way to get the scheme off the ground is to offer free equipment," he said.

Simon Jennings, a partner at chartered accountants Rawlinson and Hunter, said that it would get involved in the scheme but probably not in its first year.

"We don't want to act as a guinea pig," he said.

LIZ MORRELL
From the 29 May edition of Network News