Archive for the 'eire' Category

Irish Revenue Commissioners make eFiling mandatory

Published March 23rd, 2010 in HM Customs and Revenue, online, secure certificate, slippery slope, IRS, efiling, Revenue Commissioners, paperless, eire, Pay and File and ireland. 0 Comments

Back in 2006 we mused over whether estatements from  a Bank were good or bad we concluded they were goodfor the bank, but bad for the individual.

Well now abother large organisation here in Ireland has furthered its hatrid of paper. From 1 January 2010, the Revenue Commissioners (who are the Revenue and Customs and Excise organ of the state) commeced “Phase 2″ of mandatory eFiling. It applies to certain companies only.

But the slippery slope is here, its just a matter of time before it extends to individuals.

The Revenue Commisioners already refuse to accept cash in their offices; they only accept payment by Debit Card, Cheques (which the IPSO wants to abolish by 2016) and a Single Debit Authority or Direct Debit.

Can you see where this is headed? I can, and its a bad place.

You see eThis and eThat sounds well and good in the short term, and there will be photo opportunities, like a Minister for Finance holding a CD-ROM containing a PDF instead of a paper booklet, thats ok, thats like an eStatement, you could print itif you wanted to, but we are talking about the Revenue Commissioners here. They have huge powers, and limitless funds to hire lawyers.

What happens if they say you didn’t submit a return? What proof would you have? a paper receipt from your own printer or a screen shot of the submission page? What could would believe that, sure you could have photoshopped it yourself. The Revenue Commissioners know that paper matters. That is why for years their documents have had watermarks and UV threads.

so heres our slogan (comprised of three clichés)…
“eFiling: It’s all fun and games, until something goes wrong, then you don’t have a leg to stand on”

You spelled my name wrong!, is it because I’m Irish?

Published February 5th, 2010 in o shea, oshea, taking the soup, comment box, op ed, deed poll, passport name change, editorial, eire, gaeilge, airline security, surnames, diplomatic, jobsworth, pedantic, spelled name incorrectly, grinds my gears and irish surnames. 3 Comments

My name is let us say John O’Shea, so my surname is

  • O’Shea

Note how

  • The first letter is Capitalised (of course)
  • There is an apostophe (no spaces either side)
  • The first letter of the Shea is capitalised

My surname is not

  • O Shea (makes it look like the O an initial of a middle name)
  • OShea (at least they capitalised the S)
  • Oshea (no comment!)
  • Shea (dropping the O is often referred to as ‘taking the soup’, a term with political and religions connotations beyond the scope of this article!)

The only variation that could be correct would be ifI was being referred to in the Irish language (or Gaelic as I recently heard it called on an episode of Murder She Wrote) where it would be

  • Ó Sé

Now, this might sound pedantic, but having a surname of Irish origin, that is to say a surname that contains an apostophe causes many problems in this computer age.

I once received an academic certificate, suitable for framing! which said

“This is to certify that John Oshea has passed the examination…”

Now, surely someone, somewhere knew that was wrong? or did they?

I am constantly surprised to meet fellow apostophied surname holders who don’t know how to even write their own names. I have, yes believe it, met another John O Shea who wrote his name like that.

But the real problem these days is on the web. Some scripts don’t like the apostophe, and that character is reserved for coding. So when I enter my name it becomes John O/‘Shea.

My .ie domains are incorrectly named. The IE Domain Registry system, or else it is the resellers script does that, but some WHOIS on some  .ie domains returns proper names, it’s mystery, and one that no one is interested in, well I assume so, if you are then please comment!

A more serious problem, one with consequences is Airline tickets. My Passport is in the name of John O’Shea (in fairness to the Passport Office, they print exactly what you write on the application form)

But when I book tickets on airline websites they often become John O Shea, which often becomes John Shea, maybe some human vets these things?
I’ve been delayed in Airports many times, never missed a flight yet, but it could happen.

and then theres my credit card… When ordering stuff online its bad enough that Address Verification doesn’t work because we have no postcodes in Eire (I don’t want postcodes) but an extra flag is raised when name verification fails. Some companies such as Dabs want you to jump through hoops when two flags are raised.

So, do you have a surname with an apostophe? Let us know what you experiences are below…

Cheers, John O’Shea
oh and by the way, a note to Journalists this text is Copyright John O’Shea (spelled correctly) so don’t lift it for your back page!

Advertising

.