Internet browsers and the Government Gateway

13 January 2016

We recently received a query from a member who was experiencing difficulty accessing HMRC’s latest digital offering – Payrolling of Benefits in Kind Service (PBIKs).

The issue was that there appeared to be no reference to PBIK within their existing government gateway accounts so they were unable to register for Payrolling for the 2016-17 tax year. A solution was not available via the member’s contact with the Large Business Unit or the Online Service help desk and as a result they were unable to register for the PBIK service.

It eventually transpired that to resolve the issue our member was required to update their browser from Internet Explorer 8 to a more current version. Because Internet Explorer is a browser that we know to be in common use, we asked HMRC about the need for the browser update, in their response they drew our attention to the recent update from Microsoft that details the Lifecycle Support policy for Internet Explorer available as at 12 January 2016.

The recommendation therefore would be for members who use Internet Explorer to upgrade to the latest Microsoft supported versions as soon as possible, as any incompatibility or security issues will not be fixed by the vendor and therefore HMRC cannot continue to support those versions.

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