Tax return Archives | Page 2 of 4

Every Day of January is the 31st

January 21, 2021/in 2019, 2020, 2021, Self-assessment, Tax return, Tax returns/by Guy Bridger

HMRC have announced that those members of the public not able to pay their taxes or submit tax returns on time will be able to appeal against the late filing penalties they will inevitably get this winter. From what we have been hearing HMRC are expecting everyone to have adequate proof of sickness. Does this mean that they will be expected to waste the time of the medical community who, if I am right, are rather busy these days?

What will happen if tax filers struggle with the HMRC online service and cannot get help over the phone, perhaps because HMRC are closing early, not open over the two Sundays, under-staffed on the helplines and rather strangely make you wait 40 minutes in a queue (which has been the case the past year)?

What are people to do?

Buy last minute accounting software from some of the companies climbing on the band wagon to further stress and pressure people into adopting overbearing products and systems designed for businesses not necessarily for sole traders, who probably use their personal bank accounts to get paid, so have mixed use issues? These software products are now being pedalled to the public as the fix-all solution — but who wants to have all their personal bank info imported into a tax and accounting package? Are people expected to analyse every minutiae and, in doing so, become experts on what they can claim or most likely not claim anyway! Or have to master percentages for use of things such as telephone, Internet usage and then apportion in the software (how does this work if at all)?

When I worked with the office of tax simplification we worked out what was actually happening in society and gave it credence;

People earn an income from dealing with their clients;
They may or may not provide materials or use tools;
They may or may not use transport;
They probably have some communication and technology costs;
Then they may have some professional costs like insurance.

It’s hardly rocket science.

When you come to use the HMRC software it leads you through the maze somewhat similar to the psychology of coping with your first orientation of a new Ikea store!

So I can tell you …

Guy Tells No. 10 to Extend Self-Assessment Deadline

January 14, 2021/in Accountancy, Accountants, Guy Bridger, Office of Tax Simplification, South London, Tax return, Tax returns/by Guy Bridger

[THERE IS BREAKING NEWS ABOUT THIS POST – CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS]

Guy Bridger, Taxfile’s founder, has personally delivered a post card to Boris Johnson. He recently slipped it under the door of Number 10 Downing Street (there is no letterbox!).

The Issue with the Tax Return Deadline – & Guy’s Suggested Solution

In his communication to Boris, Guy suggested that the tax return filing deadline should be permanently extended, for example to the end of February, instead of 31 January as it is currently. In his proposed scenario, people would have longer to file their tax return. As well as taking the pressure off over Christmas, New Year and during January, this later deadline would also mean less likelihood of receiving a surcharge on the possible tax debt they owed for the last tax year’s calculation. Taking this a step further and with the help of video journalist David Gyimah, Guy has also been making a documentary about the tax return filing deadline and the immense pressure it puts people under during Christmas and the New Year — and especially during the entire month of January.

In contrast, limited company businesses currently have 9 months in which to file their accounts to Companies House and at the same time pay their taxes. Interestingly, they have 12 months to file their Corporation Tax return.

Guy & Taxfile

Guy has worked in South London for 25 years, dealing with members of the public and their tax responsibilities. At Taxfile, he has long-serving, thoughtful staff on hand six, sometimes seven, days a week every January. This is a measure of just how much work the current tax return deadline causes during this key accounting month every year. Taxfile makes it their task to remind — even nag — every customer about the deadline, as most of them will have to submit a Self-Assessment tax return by 31 January.

Consulting with the Office of Tax Simplification

Guy Bridger’s last visit to the Treasury was when he worked with The Office of Tax Simplification, resulting in the recognition that people actually prepare their self-employed accounts on a cash basis.

When Guy worked with John Whiting there, the other theme he was interested in was the idea that people who were sole traders perhaps didn’t need to form a limited company. This was because, in agreement with John and many members of the consultation body, it was our view that Read more

Self Assessment Income Tax Returns 2019/20 – COVID Edition

November 25, 2020/in 2020, 2021, Accountants, coronavirus, Coronavirus, COVID-19, COVID-19, Income & Expenditure, Income tax, Pandemic, Pandemic, Self-assessment, Self-employed, Tax, Tax accountant, Tax accountants, Tax agents, Tax calculation, Tax return, Tax returns, Uncategorized/by Taxfile

To date there has been no change on the deadline to submit and pay your 2019/20 Self Assessment Income Tax return by 31st January 2021.

In preparation for our busiest period in the year we have been doing everything to ensure both our offices and business practices are ready to cope with the changes imposed on us by the Coronavirus pandemic.

At Taxfile we have been doing everything we can to make sure our offices comply by current pandemic safety practices. We have fitted perspex screens between staff and clients, only allowing 2 clients in at a time, minimising each visit to a maximum of 15-minutes & socially distancing our staff members on site with a maximum of 3 in the main office at one time.

We would like to stress to all our existing & potential customers, we ARE OPEN if you need help in submitting your 2019/20 tax returns. We currently offer a variety of ways to help you:

Booking an appointment to see a tax agent face-to-face for 15 minutes – call us on 020 8761 8000 so we can arrange a time and date with you
Offices are open for you to drop off paperwork to be processed and then sent through to a tax agent who can then discuss your return over the phone with you or face-to-face
Email service where all electronic data can be sent directly through to the tax agents via emails, this is probably the easiest, quickest, and safest way to proceed. You can directly send the agents your financial data through on email or using services such as dropbox or google sheets. They can then calculate your return and liaise with you via phone & email.
You can book an online ‘virtual’ meeting HERE

Regardless of which way or combination of ways suits your needs, know that we are here for you till the deadline date of 31/01/2021 but urge you to contact us sooner than later as we are restricted by the number of people we can physically see & data we can work through during these uncertain times.

We are also urging our clients to pay via online banking for their Taxfile invoices, details found on the bottom of our invoice, reducing the need to come in or phone in to pay a bill as we need to reduce the number of people in the office for health and safety & therefore reducing our resources available. We are still accepting all payment forms but if clients CAN pay via online banking, then we are encouraging them to do so.

If you have not submitted your 2019/20 tax return (that in most cases will run from 6th April 2019 through to 5th April 2020), then now is the time to get all your financial data together, and decide which of the four methods outlined above will be most convenient for you. Get in touch now & don’t leave it till the last minute. This year is like no other!

Act NOW & get 5% Off 2019-20 Self-Assessment Tax Return Fees

November 9, 2020/in 2019, 2020, Accountancy, Accountants, Battersea, Dulwich, Self-assessment, Tax, Tax accountant, Tax accountants, Tax advice, Tax advisers, Tax return, Tax returns, Tulse Hill/by Mark

Have you contacted us about your 2019-20 Self Assessment tax return yet?

If not, please get in touch early this month (November). You’ll save 5% or more¹ by acting right away. You’ll also avoid the coming bottleneck if you act now. So, please get in touch:

Get started with your tax return here
or call 020 8761 8000
or book an appointment² here

We’ll then confirm the next steps.

1. If you supply everything in time for us to submit your tax return by 30 November 2020, you’ll save 5% off our standard tax return fees. You’ll save even more compared to the higher prices that we’ll need to impose closer to the self-assessment deadline. Our prices will also increase very soon to cover weekend working and overtime to cater for those who leave it to the last minute. Please bear in mind that the pandemic lock-down will make things even harder than usual, so please act now and plan ahead.

2. Worried about COVID? There’s no need! We can do ‘virtual’ meetings instead, for example by telephone, Zoom, Teams, WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, Skype, Facetime or whatever suits you best. So, we don’t even need to meet face-to-face. Just give us a call on 020 8761 8000 to discuss your preferences. We’re here to help!

Taxfile are accountants and tax advisors in South London, with offices in Tulse Hill and Dulwich.

Don’t Miss THIS on your Tax Return! (Checklist)

October 8, 2020/in 2020, Accountancy, Accountants, Self-assessment, South London, Tax, Tax return, Tax returns/by Mark

The standard Self-Assessment Tax Return includes all the usual areas that you’d expect to have to confirm to HMRC. These include the obvious things like personal details, information about income for the period in question, any assets, dividends, interest received, pensions and so on.

However, there are a number of additional areas that you need to check and confirm before the return is submitted and filed with HMRC. It’s not an exhaustive list, but things people sometimes miss and that you need to check you have allowed for (if applicable) include:

Employment Income — have you confirmed any employment income? Have you supplied Taxfile, if we’re your tax agent or accountant, with copies of P60’s and P11D’s. Did you have any employment expenses?
Self-Employment Income or Partnership Income — have you confirmed any self-employed or partnership income and relevant expenses? Have you supplied all CIS vouchers, invoices, cash income etc. if applicable?
UK Land & Property Income — have you confirmed any rental income and relevant expenses for each property you perhaps rent out?
Foreign Income — did you receive any foreign income? Have you confirmed it?
Trust Income — did you receive any trust income or are you treated as having received any trust income?
Capital Gains — have you sold any assets or investments which may be subject to capital gains tax e.g. a rental house, stocks and shares etc?
Residence — were you, for all or part of the year, not resident, not ‘ordinarily resident’ or not ‘domiciled’ in the UK?
Investment Income — have you confirmed any bank/building society interest, dividends, etc?
Pension Income — are you in receipt of any? It needs confirming if so.
Any other income received that doesn’t fit into any of the above e.g. Job Seekers Allowance, Tax Credits? Child Benefit is an important one, especially if one parent is earning £50k or more. Marriage Allowance is another.
Do you have a pension that you pay into? If so, how much did you pay for the period in question?
Have you given any money to charity? Higher rate taxpayers can usually get extra tax relief on this.
Do you have a student loan?
Are you subject to the High Income Benefit Charge?
Do you use a service company?
Have you been paying your National Insurance?
Have you been keeping good records?

Taxfile will always prompt you to check for things like these if you’re our customer, before we submit your tax return on your behalf. As we say above, though, the list is not an exhaustive one, so there may be other information we need, depending upon your individual situation. The list of what HMRC requires each year also Read more

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment (MTD IT). Are you ready?

September 1, 2020/in Buy to let, HM Revenue and Customs, HMRC, Income & Expenditure, Income tax, Landlords, Making Tax Digital, MTD, Self-assessment, Self-employed, Software packages, Sole traders, Tax return, Tax returns, Taxes, Taxfile/by Taxfile

The Government has now pencilled in what they regard as a firm date to implement MTD for IT, for all landlords and business owners that have an income above £10,000.

The next accounting period starting on or after 06/04/2023 that meet the above mentioned criteria will need to be compiled & submitted via MTD-compatible software.

If you are self-employed or a landlord with a turnover greater than £10k, how will MTD affect you?

1. You will need to submit a quarterly summary of your businesses income & expenses to HMRC using MTD-compliant software. Yes, you read that correctly. No longer can you do your tax return in one go, with a lot of our customers leaving it to December or even January before they come to see us. As your tax agents, we would need your business transactions every 3 months, to compile, compute, and submit through to HMRC.

The timing of the quarterly updates is determined by the accounting period of the business but typically the 4 quarters will be:

6 April to 5 July
6 July to 5 October
6 October to 5 January
6 January to 5 April

2. All your income and expenses will need to be individually logged electronically. The technical term used is that every business transaction will have an ‘electronic signature’. These signatures will then be submitted to HMRC every 3 months and you will receive an estimated tax projection for the year based on the information provided.

3. At the end of the year, any non-business information, foreign income, other income, etc is added to finalise your tax affairs and submitted using the MTD-compatible software. This replaces the need for a Self Assessment tax return. You will then have Read more

Your Tax Return – All Wrapped Up for Christmas!

November 26, 2019/in 2018, 2019, 2020, Accountancy, Accountants, Income tax, London, Save money, Self-assessment, South London, Tax refunds, Tax return, Tax returns, Tulse Hill/by Mark

Urgent: rather than waiting until January, start sorting out your Self-Assessment Tax Return out right now.

Why now? Well, because every tax expert and accountant in the land is about to hit their busiest month in the accounting year — January. For tax professionals, January is a frantic time because everyone wants their tax matters sorted out at the same time due to HMRC’s deadlines. So, we have to take on extra staff, extend our opening hours and open at weekends — just to keep up with the demand. All of this costs extra money, so we have to increase charges a little during January to cater for the enormous increase in workload. January also becomes quite a bottleneck. In January alone, we are likely to have to prepare and submit around 500 Self-Assessment tax returns for our customers and that’s a very tall order.

So — act now & save money on your tax return

You can avoid extra charges by coming in to see us for your tax return now — well before January. It makes sense to come in early in November or December if you can. That way, we can have your tax affairs sorted in time for Christmas, avoiding the bottleneck. You can then relax in the knowledge that your tax matters have been sorted, ahead of the rush, at the best possible price.

Saturday opening

We’re open Saturday mornings at Tulse Hill from 9am until 1pm for a limited time. So, make the most of this opportunity and book a weekend appointment now, while it costs nothing extra.

Get a tax refund for Christmas!

We can help prepare and submit your Self-Assessment tax return and let you know the all-important amount of tax you need to pay or, indeed, may even be owed by HMRC. If you’ve overpaid tax, we could even get your refund for you in time for Christmas — what a Read more

Autumn Newsletter 2018

November 12, 2018/in 2017, 2018, 2019, Accountancy, Bookkeeping, Income tax, London, Newsletter, Self-assessment, Tax, Tax advice, Tax advisers, Tax return, Tax returns, Tulse Hill/by Mark

Those of you who are not on our mailing list may be unaware of our latest newsletter. So, we thought we’d post a little about it here, along with a link where you can download an Acrobat PDF version to read at your leisure.

Keep on Top of your Taxes

The Autumn 2018 Newsletter is packed full of articles and advice to help you get on top of your taxes, make sure you are aware of the services we offer and, above all else, ensure that you file your tax return in good time.

It’s Tax Return Time! Act Now!

When it comes to Self-Assessment tax returns, the main message is to act now. That way you will avoid the January stampede and any unnecessary, additional expenses.

Key Contacts at Taxfile

Along with other tax news and advice, we also include a very useful table of your key contacts at Taxfile. Simply choose the service you require and the key people responsible for helping you can be found alongside, including their email addresses for direct contact.

Download the eNewsletter

To find out much more, download the Taxfile Autumn 2018 Newsletter here.

Professional Help to Get Your Tax Affairs in Order

Taxfile are super-keen to help you through the maze of HMRC rules and tax regulations. We’ll get your paperwork, accounts, bookkeeping and tax returns all in order. Simple!

Open for Saturday Appointments

Taxfile’s Tulse Hill (SE21) office is now open on Saturday mornings, from 10am until 1pm, for pre-booked appointments. So, if you’d like to discuss any aspect of your tax and a weekend appointment is more convenient than a weekday, call 0208 761 8000 to book one or book an appointment online here.

Christmas & New Year Opening at Taxfile

December 21, 2017/in 2017, 2018, Accountants, Christmas, New Year, Self-assessment, Tax advice, Tax advisers, Tax return, Tax returns, Tulse Hill/by Mark

The Taxfile Team would like to wish all our readers and customers a very happy festive season and to pass on our very best wishes to everyone for the New Year.

Taxfile will be open as usual until Saturday* 23 December. We then close briefly for Christmas Day and Boxing Day (Monday 25 & Tuesday 26 December respectively).

We will be open again as usual from Wednesday 27th to Saturday* 30th December, then closed for the New Year’s celebrations until Tuesday 2nd January 2018 when we re-open again —from that date it’s back to our usual working hours. Here are the full details:

Thursday 21 December: open 9am – 5pm
Friday 22 December: open 9am – 3pm
Saturday 23 December: open 10am to 1pm (by appointment only)
Sunday 24 December: closed
Monday 25 December (Christmas Day): closed
Tuesday 26 December (Boxing Day): closed
Wednesday 27 December: open 9am – 5pm
Thursday 28 December: open 9am – 5pm
Friday 29 December: open 9am – 3pm
Saturday 30 December: open 10am -1pm (by appointment only)
Sunday 31 December: closed
Monday 1 January 2018 (New Year’s Day): closed for the Bank Holiday
Tuesday 2 January onwards: open as usual Mon-Tues 9-6, Wed-Thur 9-5, Fri 9-3, Sat 9-1 (by appointment)

*Saturday morning opening is from 10am to 1pm and is for appointments only, so do book an appointment if you’d like to discuss anything with us at the weekend rather than during the normal working week.

Last few free 20 minute appointments – act fast if you’d like a free tax consultation!

If you would like a free 20 minute consultation for any tax matter, please book a date before the end of December as we pause free consultations during our busiest month of the year – in January we are swamped with tax return deadlines and have to concentrate on hitting those on behalf of our customers. Free 20 minute consultations will, of course, resume from 1st February.

You can book an appointment online here or simply call 0208 761 8000 (07766 495 871 after office hours) to arrange one with our tax professionals.

The Taxfile Team wishes you all a very happy festive season and our very best wishes for the New Year. Thank you too for your custom during 2017 — we really appreciate it. Here’s to 2018 when it arrives!

Tax Return Reminder: Beat the Last Minute Rush & Save Money!

December 21, 2017/in 2016, 2017, 2018, Accountants, HMRC, Self-assessment, Tax return, Tax returns/by Mark

If you’d like our help with your Self-Assessment tax return, please do try to get your records and figures to us before 10th of January if you want to avoid the last minute rush and save money – there will be slightly higher charges for our help from that date (inclusive). This is to cover extra staff and overtime required during the the final part of January – our busiest time of the year – when we can deal with all the last minute returns for those who have left it until the last minute. So, save hassle, avoid the last minute bottlenecks and also save yourself some money by getting your records and figures to us well before 10th January if at all possible. We can still help thereafter, of course, but it’ll cost you a little bit more.

For individuals, your figures, records and, where applicable, receipts are required for the financial year 6 April 2016 to 5 April 2017. (For business accounts, of course, we will also need to do accounts based on the business’s individual year end).

Either book your appointment online at taxfile.co.uk/appointments/ or call the office on 0208 761 8000 (07766 495 871 after hours). If English is not your first language we can still help, as our team speaks a variety of languages.

Please don’t leave it to the last minute – thank you.