Trying to use ROS website

Donalde

I have been using ROS for about 6 years and I find it to be, consistently the worst financial site I have ever used.
Why do my tax affairs need a so much more secure website than my bank account? (I am informed by an employee of Revenue that any staff member may access anybody's tax return!)
The ROS Cert, which has to be downloaded onto my hard drive, is quite excessive, it takes at least a week to set up, by post, it can be lost if the computer crashes, it seems to only last for two years and then has to be renewed by post again. Mostly totally unnecessary!
Forgotten password has to be sent out by post, not email.
Even when the digital cert and password are in place, Java and Firefox settings have to be exactly right to get access.
Website is unbelievably slow! Just to save a blank page on the Form 11 is taking up to 8 minutes (internet connection is fine otherwise).
Complaints on the above lines have been submitted to the 'Strategy Manager' but no constructive response received.
The whole site is a huge time waster especially for a very simple tax return - no wonder it could not be used for the LPT.

Mr. Incognito

Public tendering process.

As far as I know Accenture designed the site.

Too many cooks etc.

barneystinson

What is the old saying - You can please some of the people some of the time... wasn't there someone on here a few weeks ago pissing and moaning about Java or Javascript or some such and concerned about it not being secure enough and now the security measures are too much for this OP...

It's been a couple of years since I used ROS on a daily basis, but when I did I always found it relatively user friendly and fit for purpose.

srsly78

There are various laws governing how official government digital transactions work - these MUST use a digital signature. Your bank is a private entity and does not have to follow these regulations. Ireland was actually quite pioneering having laws in place governing this "e-government" stuff.

Unbelievably I even have links to back this up: http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2000/en/act/pub/0027/index.html (see section on signatures, you need a digital cert to make a digital signature)

Digital signatures are needed to verify your identity, and this ties into the postal issuance method - as per rules above.

You can backup your digital cert, no need to lose it in a crash. Use some cloud service like Google Drive or DropBox. Be careful of security with your cert naturally (don't want hackers paying your LPT for you after all). Once you get setup the system is actually very good (I operate a small company) - but I can see how it might be overkill just to pay one bill.

Donalde

I can accept the point made by srsly78, that the site works well for those using it regularly, but my tax return takes about an hour, once a year, if I have the figures prepared in advance, (although it was extremely slow yesterday, but that may be because it was the last day for LPT payment).
Is it not a bit ridiculous that in order to do my one hour of work on ROS, annually, I have to wait 8 days to get a Digital Cert or to recover a forgotten password? and also spend a lot of time on the help line overcoming problems with Java settings?
It is quite clear to me that one site does not fit all - and a site/security designed for a tax agent or multi-national company is not appropriate for a private individual. This, presumably, is why they could not use it for LPT.
If a simple site, without Digital Certs, like the LPT can be used for that tax, then why not the same for income tax?
If, as you say, the Irish Government had a pioneering influence on the laws applied to this kind of situation, then maybe they should now have a look at it again!

On a similar tack, if it is not off topic, I might mention that I previously had a similar situation with the Bank of Ireland, when I acted as treasurer for a very small local charity. We would only be dealt with by the bank as a 'business' and as such had to use there massive web infrastructure, (at a cost of €15 per month) when all we wanted was to see a statement of account, now and then. We couldn't afford the charges, so we didn't get even the basic service, given free to personal customers. One size doesn't fit all.