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CT600 UK HMRC FreeBSD Acroread
Submitting a CT600 Corporation Tax Return to British HMRC
Using FreeBSD With Adobe Acroread (Acrobat Reader)
Summary: Yes it can & does work, here's some tips/ notes,
however it's raw notes, needs tidying.
Index
- Year numbers refer to real years when work was done
filling forms, & to software versions available at that
time. The years do not refer to previous tax year being
entered as data.
- 2012 I started using Acroread on XP (Ugh!), found
Acroread also ran on my FreeBSD-i686 & switched to
FreeBSD.
- 2013-09 I used FreeBSD-9.1 amd64 with Linux Acroread xxx,
It seemed a lot faster than last year, OK, more powerful
laptop, but probably something in the pdf or acrobat had been
fixed
2013 Notes immediately below
- 2014-09 I used FreeBSD-9.2
2014 Notes further below
- 2015-09 Notes further below
Security
- Realise you will be running a binary for which Adobe
issues no inspect-able source code, thus it is intrinsicly
un-trustworthy.
Might Adobe be tempted to use their binary to also search
the computer for other products or data ? If so, they
wouldn't be the first USA company to abuse their position.
The
USA NSA now even spies on its own citizens, &
co-erces USA companies to assist in the spying.
- An untrusted binary such as Acrobat could snaffle any
data accessible to user, including but not limited to UK
HMRC tax IDs & other data, pass a copy to anyone, inc
eg USA's NSA.
- It's wrong of UK HMRC to require UK citizens to use
un-trustworthy software from an alien country to file UK
company tax returns.
HMRC should provide a form that runs with free source
software.
- I took simple precautions:
- Created new user with no files.
- Ran the (non SUID) executable as that user.
- OK, A chroot would be more thorough :-)
-
Note when installing Acrobat the FreeBSD ports wrapper
issues warnings:
===> Registering installation for Acroread9-9.5.5
===> SECURITY REPORT:
This port has installed the following files which may act as network
servers and may therefore pose a remote security risk to the system.
......
CT600.pdf is Version 2.8.0
After Co Reg No Prefix (blank if not N. Ireland etc)
One can enter a Co. Reg No. with a leading zero into the CT600.pdf data,
but then
After Authentication Code
& click to Authenticate
it will fail until:
Edit Preference Internet proxy from {blank 1080} to eg {manual gate 80 all}
(you will also need to later set proxy in Firefox too: {Edit, Preference, Advanced, Network, Settings}).
Then if you enter company number with a leading zero,
it (the live internet connection via Acroread to authorise)
will fail with "Error 9999 Co not registered for electronic filing"
so this time omit any leading zero.
After submitting Authentication Code it wants an email address,
that might be part of the authentication,
& not just a notification address ?
Bugs/ Problems
- Adobe Reader has some crisis with AMD (auto mount
demon) or NFS (Network File System). I run a heavily cross
host AMD symbolic linked common site wide file system. But
for Adobe Reader I reduced all access it needed to a local
host
- I ran on local laptop screen after I had auth problems.
I successfully use xauth for xterm, firefox & exmh, but
not for this Adobe Reader. Maybe I could fix it but I
didn't care, I use Adobe Reader just once a year for
HMRC.
- Acroread after viewing CT600Output.pdf stupidly asks
"Do you want to save changes" though I've changed nothing,
just displayed with Firefox.
- Acroread after just re-viewing an original copy of
CT600.pdf, after exit complains to the invoking shell in
xterm, 3 copies of this line: "terminate called after
throwing an instance of 'RSException'".
Observations
Click Help, About
Adobe Reader 9.5.5 04/26/2013
Acroread remains excrement software: a greedy slug,
hogging memory & CPU, freezing screen performance
(top shows size 252 Meg & 98 % of CPU ),
CT600.pdf is Version 3.2.0
After loading a CT600.html a making No edits, & rest of machine idle,
16 hours later the CPU fan was still wearing up & down as Acroread
continued to impose load for no reason (also consuming 370 Meg!).
Working with a new empty login to limit data
access. Do more help clicking, till it starts firefox to got to
adobe site, then it will fail cos firefox will need to have proxy
set, click the button to include http ssl ftp.
Acroread does not inherit the proxy.
I followed procedure of online-change-settings.pdf
Got a few pages into the CT600 & decided to set proxy:
Edit, Preferences, Internet, Manual, gate, 80
On Authentication page, I first tried company number without leading
zero & it failed to authenticate,
2nd attempt with leading zero & same hand typed Authentication
code worked OK
Notes 2014-Oct-29 onward, (after earlier filing for tax
year 2013)
- Adobe have removed their software no longer available
for Linux.
- Freebsd.org have removed from 11.0-CURRENT ports/print/
acroread8 acroread9 acroreadwrapper. Maybe I'll create
retro ports
-
Scratching around to see other solutions:
- http://phil.flaxandteal.co.uk/?p=159
Quote from January 7, 2015.: I used GnuCash's UK VAT
Accounts template (even though F&T was not VAT
registered in the accounting period, this provides some
future proofing).
- Dec 4 '14
https://askubuntu.com/questions/556150/adobe-acrobat-reader-version-10-11-ubuntu-14-04
Only solution was to install Adobe Reader for
Windows XP: I have Windows XP running as a VM using
VirtualBox. That worked OK. Hopefully, this problem
will not be there for next year's company accounts
& tax return as HMRC told me that they will not be
using Adobe Reader writing to a downloaded (from HMRC)
CT600 pdf file but will instead be completing a CT600
form directly on their website. This is the method used
for HMRC personal tax returns, which work OK.
- Try to run acrobat on some spare host, not your
workstation that serves your main screen, as Acrobat uses
masses of CPU.
- Try to run Acrobat window on a spare (X11) screen such
as a networked laptop etc. Not main on main worstation/
desktop, as Acrobat screen refresh is as slow as watching a
glacier melt; just moving mouse between a text notes file
& acrobat can takes minutes to screen refresh. Yes I
have a panelling window manager (fvwm) that still doesnt
solve the problem. Use xhost + as xauth fails.
-
Local notes
- host=fire 9.2 runs acroread v?
- host=lapr S1 8.4-RELEASE
- host=lapr S2 10.1-RELEASE acroread runs 9.5.5 (but
X screen fails so use 9.3)
- host=lapr S3 9.3-RELEASE acroread runs 9.5.5
- host=lapr S4 11.0-CURRENT acroread: No acroread
binary found chroot /data/release/s3; acroread
terminate called after throwing an instance of
'RSException' native runs OK
- host=laps, S3=8.2-RELEASE acroread=9.5.1 03/07/2012
also failed to authenticate to co house (both with
& without leading zero on co number)
- android: 15.5.2
-
URLs
- 9.3-RELEASE
cd /usr/ports/print/acroreadwrapper ; make
reinstall-recursive
cd /usr/ports/print/acroread9 ; make reinstall-recursive
needs a CR else it hangs
=== WARNING === Before using Adobe Reader 9,
linux_adobe.ko kernel module has to be loaded. It is
automatically loaded by /usr/local/etc/rc.d/linux_adobe
script on boot time. You can manually load it by
# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/linux_adobe start without
rebooting.
To run this version of Adobe Reader, set ADOBE_LANG=ENU
and use /usr/local/bin/acroread. Note that when $LANG is
set, $ADOBE_LANG will be set automatically based on
it.
- Co House Support desk mentioned a new problem in 2015,
relating to change from SSL to TLS1 change.
- acroread 9.5.5 edit prefs internet
allows to set proxy manual gate 80
but theres no option to set SSL 2, SSL3, or TLS1
- 2015-10-01:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/375962/20141103_How_to_change_Adobe_Reader_s_security_settings.pdf
States: "You must have Adobe Reader version 9.2 or
later installed on your computer to use the HMRC Company
Tax Return software."
It shows how to set Trust setting in Adobe Reader 10 &
11, but it makes No Mention of SSL & TLS.
- 2015-10-16: I used Companies House HTML Form on line,
only problem was form does not allow a negative revaluation
reserve, so co house reccomend rolling that into Profit
& Loss Account.
-
2015-12-30 (for tax year 2014) I used FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE
amd64 + acroread to call Adobe Reader 9.5.5 04/26/2013,
Which ran about as slow as watching paint dry, but Did
complete my tax return, despite emitting various errors
such as:
(acroread:20106): GLib-GIO-WARNING **: Could not initialize inotify
(acroread:20106): GLib-GIO-WARNING **: FAMOpen failed, FAMErrno=3
(acroread:20106): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to find default local directory monitor type
(process:78225): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_slice_set_config: assertion `sys_page_size == 0' failed
Failed to connect to socket /tmp/fam-jhs-
Fontconfig error: "/usr/local/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf", line 70: non-double matrix element
Fontconfig warning: "/usr/local/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf", line 78: saw unknown, expected number
Which proves one does Not need Adobe 10, despite John
Rose (for whom I see no email address, so havent
mailed him) wrote 11:49 3 Dec 2014
"Adobe Acrobat Reader version 10/11 & Ubuntu
14.04
I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 desktop. I have enabled the
partners repo & installed Adobe Reader 9.5.5 OK.
Unfortunately, I need Adobe Reader version 10 or
11"
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