Government tax plans not in the spirit of ebusiness

You will have heard any number of times that the web is just another channel to market. Companies don't rely on it to serve all their customers, with the odd exception.

Yet one of the largest organisations in Europe is taking this route, a route that will inevitably affect thousands of other companies.

The UK government is planning on making firms file their tax returns electronically. From 2005, all companies with a total staff of more than 250 will have to complete them online or face a hefty fine. Well, £3,000 pounds, maximum.

For companies with 50 or more employees, the deadline is 2006. Fewer than 50 and the deadline is 2010.

£3,000 isn't a lot to a company with a revenue of millions of pounds but to a smaller firm it could be painful.

Of note here is not that the little man might be disadvantaged. It is that the government is going against one of the most fundamental ebusiness premises.

The point of ebusiness is to increase options, making life easier and more efficient - not to replace one system with another.

Sure, online should be an option but so too should offline, old-fashioned returns, even if that means the government doesn't save as much as the £35m the Carter Review has estimated.

The government might be under pressure to hit its 2005 target of getting all its services online but bending the rules of ebusiness is not the way to go about it.