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Tax Returns for Self-Employed Londoners - Special Offer

Tax Returns for Self-Employed Londoners – Special Offer!

Tax returns for self-employed Londoners - Special Offer!
Are you self-employed? Are you late filing your 2018/19 Self-Assessment tax return? If so, now is the time to get Taxfile to sort it out for you.

There are 4 important reasons why you should file your tax return now:

1. Save money, with our special offer!

For a very limited time, we are offering to do 2018-19 Self-Assessment tax returns for self-employed Londoners for just £199 + VAT (our usual pricing is from £277 + VAT). That’s a saving of nearly £94 including VAT.

2. Stay eligible for Government Help during the lock-down

Self-employed people who are struggling financially during the coronavirus lock-down may be eligible for financial help from the Government. This is in the form of their recently announced Self-Employed Income Support Scheme (‘SEISS’). However, to remain eligible, you must have filed your 2018/19 Self-Assessment tax return by 23 April. If you miss that deadline, you will no longer be eligible for that Government assistance.

3. Avoid severe fines from HMRC for being so late

The original deadline for submission of your 2018/19 Self-Assessment tax return was actually 31 January 2020. So, if you didn’t already file your tax return by that date, you already owe HMRC a fine of £100 minimum. That’s nothing, though, compared to the penalties they will start charging you after April. From 1 May, you will owe an additional £10 per day, every day from that date if you still haven’t filed your 2018/19 tax return. So, for example, after a week you’ll owe the original £100 plus an additional £70 as a minimum, or the £100 plus a further £140 after two weeks and so on. You may also be charged interest on top of all of that if you owed HMRC a tax payment on the original 31 January deadline and still haven’t paid it.

4. You may be due a tax rebate

Some self-employed people may be due a tax rebate. This depends upon your

Over 400 tax returns submitted

We Submitted Over 400 Tax Returns in January!

Over 400 tax returns submitted

Taxfile prepared and submitted more than 400 Self-Assessment tax returns for clients during January. That’s about a hundred a week and goes to show just how busy it gets for us during January, the busiest month in our accounting calendar.

Did you submit your tax return on time?

The deadline for submission of your tax return (and payment of any tax due) was 31st January at midnight. Did you manage to submit yours in time? If not, you’re already into the ‘penalty’ period where HMRC basically fine you for being late. The penalty comes in the form of an initial £100 fine but that increases, potentially very significantly, as you get later and later with your tax return submission. If you look at the table below, it’s safe to say that you can end up owing a thousand pounds or more if you bury your head in the sand and are 3 months late, or more.  If you continue to leave your tax payment and tax return submission outstanding for six months or more, the penalty is £1300 as a minimum – perhaps more (it depends upon how much tax you owe).

Late return penalties by HMRC

Is your tax return & tax payment late? Taxfile can help!

If you are late submitting your tax return or paying tax and don’t know how to straighten things out, don’t Read more

Your Tax Return - All Wrapped Up for Christmas!

Your Tax Return – All Wrapped Up for Christmas!

Your Tax Return - All Wrapped Up for Christmas!

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

Christmas & New Year Opening Times at Taxfile

Christmas & New Year Opening Times at Taxfile

Christmas & New Year Opening Times at Taxfile

Please take a look at the calendar above and note our opening times over Christmas and New Year. As you can see, we’re closed on several days over the festive period. This is particularly important for those who need to come to see us for help with time-sensitive accounting and tax-related services in the run-up to January 31st.

Need Help Filing Your Tax Return?
Make an Appointment NOW!

In particular, we urge anyone who needs to file a 2017/18 Self-Assessment tax return to come and see us well before Christmas. By doing so, you’ll avoid the last minute stampede — way too many people leave it until January, which is the busiest time in the tax and accounting calendar. While the HMRC deadline for tax returns is the end of January, you run the risk of being caught up in the bottleneck if you leave things later than December. Taxfile files tax returns for thousands of customers during November, December and January, so we’re incredibly busy at this time of year — particularly January, which is frenetic! So, those leaving it until the last minute not only run the risk of being charged more to cover the long hours and overtime that we need to work during January, but they also risk receiving a fine from HMRC if they miss the deadline completely because they left things so late.

So the message is: please book an appointment with us now, ideally for a date before Christmas.

For Self-Assessment tax returns, records for the period 6th April 2017 to 5th April 2018 are required. For business accounts, we will also need to do accounts based upon the business’s individual year end.

Open for Saturday Appointments

We are happy to see people on Saturdays at this busy time of year (with the exception of the festive closures of course – see the calendar above). Saturday morning appointments should be more convenient for those who work on weekdays. As you can see on the calendar, we’re open from 10am to 1pm for most Saturdays in December and January but only for those with a pre-agreed appointment.

To book an appointment, please call 0208 761 8000 or book an appointment online here. Many thanks.

The Spring Budget, March 2017

Spring Budget 2017: Key Changes Affecting SMEs & the Self-Employed

Philip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered his Spring Budget to the House of Commons today.

If you missed it, you can watch and listen to the entire speech by clicking the video above. For those without 55 minutes to spare, we spotlight the key changes, particularly in relation to tax, National Insurance, the self-employed and small businesses.

  • For the self-employed, Class 2 National Insurance Contributions (NICs) were already set to be abolished from April 2018. Today, to the surprise of many, the Chancellor announced that Class 4 NIC rates will increase from 9% to 10% from April 2018, increasing again to 11% in April 2019. The Chancellor said that this was to more closely align self-employed NI rates with those paid by employees, particularly in view of the new State Pension to which the self-employed will now have access.
  • Tax-free dividends for those working through a limited company will also be reduced from the current £5,000 level to just £2,000 in April 2018. Corporation Tax will then be charged above that threshold. Again, the reason cited was to bring the self-employed more in line with employees in terms of tax paid overall.
  • The National Living Wage, for those over 25, will increase to £7.50 per hour from April.
  • From April this year, the personal allowance (the amount people can earn before paying income tax) will increase to £11,500 and to £12,500 by 2020. The threshold for higher rate tax will also increase from £43,000 to £45,000 this April.
  • Up to £2,000 (tax-free) will be available towards the cost of childcare for children under 12 from April this year. So for every 80 pence you pay in childcare costs up to £10,000 maximum, the government will add a further 20 pence.
  • Those lucky enough to be able to afford it will be able to save up to £20k maximum in their ISAs from this April. There will also be an NS&I bond introduced, which will pay 2.2% interest on a maximum of £3,000 per person.
  • There will be help for businesses following business rate increases, particularly pubs, which will receive a £1,000 discount if their rateable value is less than £100k (apparently that’s 90% of all English pubs). Also businesses coming out of ‘small business rate relief’ will be helped through the transition with a promise of increases no larger than £50 per month from next year.
  • There will also be an expansion of the clampdown on tax avoidance where some businesses were converting capital losses into trading losses.

Other announcements made by the Chancellor Read more

Tax return help & accounting advice for taxi drivers, cabbies, cab firms, couriers, limos and private hire firms. We're accountants in Tulse Hill, South London, SE21.

Missed the Tax Return Deadline?

[Updated 3 February 2020]: If you missed the deadline for submission of your tax return to HMRC (that was 12 midnight on Saturday 31 January) here’s what you can expect in terms of a fine:

Table of penalties showing fines if you are late submitting your self-assessment tax return

In case you didn’t realise, you still had to submit a tax return even if you did not owe any tax and the longer you leave it, the more it will cost you — as you can see in the table above. Alternatively, use this excellent estimation tool to work out your exact penalty at any given point in time. Not sure if you even need to submit a Self Assessment tax return? No problem; there’s a tool for that too (here).

Statistically speaking, women seem to send in their returns on time more often than men; 18 to 20 year olds of either sex are the very worst with around 11% of them sending in their returns late in recent years, while those over 65 seem to be statistically the most reliable of all, with only around 1½% of them having filed tax returns late. We’ll have to wait and see how it panned out this year when the figures are in.

Taxfile are here for you if you need to get your tax return sorted out whether you’re on time or not – but the earlier the better if you’re to minimise any penalty from HMRC. We are professional accountants and tax advisors, are based in South London, and will help to get your tax affairs in order with minimal fuss. We will ensure that all your figures are correct so that you pay only the right amount of tax – no more, and no less. For professional tax help contact us or book an appointment on-line.

Tax bomb

Avoid Significant HMRC Penalties – file your tax return on time!

File your tax return in time or face severe fines[UPDATED AUGUST 2020] Did you know that you get an automatic £100 minimum penalty if you file your Self Assessment tax return (or pay any tax owed) even one day late? After 3 months you can add £10 per day extra to that fine (up to 90 days/£900 max) and after 6 months it gets significantly worse. And remember that you need to file your return on time even if you don’t owe any tax, or if you have already paid it! Latest indications are that there are also no warnings given by HMRC. See the table below for the detail.

Late return penalties by HMRC

So our message is simple: don’t file late, and don’t pay late! Taxfile are here to help you, of course. We know Self Assessment Tax Returns back to front and we can help you file accurately, and on time. If you’re late, we can help to sort things out quickly and so keep any HMRC penalties to a minimum.

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