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Tax Return 2014

STILL haven’t filed your tax return? You owe £410 in fines & counting!

If you STILL haven’t filed your tax return despite the end of May being almost upon us, you’ll owe £410 in HMRC penalties by the end of this week. Continue to throw money down the drain at the rate of £10 extra per day thereafter if you still don’t submit your return.

As we explained in our last post, missing the original January 31 deadline meant an automatic HMRC penalty of £100 (on top of tax owed, of course) at that time.
But, with the additional penalty of £10 per extra day extra having been piling up since 1st May, it means you’ll need to add £310 to the original £100 penalty by the end of this week. Carry on like this for yet another month and by the end of June you’ll owe a whopping £710. It doesn’t end there — by the end of July it’ll be worse still as there is an additional £300 penalty levied by HMRC. Yes, that’s on top of the daily £10 fine and the original £100 penalty, meaning that the total penalty will then be £1300 as a bare minimum (it can be worse still if HMRC deem your case to be particularly serious). All this simply because your tax return is late.

All these penalties are in addition to the actual tax you owe!

Don’t forget … even if you owe no tax, you still need to submit your tax return so aren’t immune to the penalties. Take another look at the full post for more detail or, better still, contact us here at Taxfile urgently if you’d like our professional help in filing your tax return on your behalf — and minimising the penalties you’ll need to pay to HMRC. Call 0208 761 8000, click here to contact us or book an appointment with one of our tax advisors here and we’d be delighted to help. We are based in Tulse Hill, South London.

Tax Return 2014

Still Haven’t Filed Your Tax Return? Expect a Nasty Bill from HMRC!

Tax Return 2014If you still haven’t filed your tax return for the financial year up to 5 April 2014 you can expect the penalties from HMRC to begin racking up daily — and potentially very significantly — starting from Friday 1 May.

If you missed the 31 January Tax Return deadline …

If you missed the 31 January 2015 deadline for tax returns, you already owe HMRC £100 in fines on top of any tax you owe. If you don’t owe any tax whatsoever, HMRC still require a tax return from you, plus that £100 in penalties.

If you still haven’t filed your return by 1 May …

From 1 May 2015 you can also expect a £10 daily penalty to kick in, on top of the £100 fine above, up to a maximum addition for the period of £900 (90 days) extra. But it gets even worse…

If you STILL haven’t filed your return by 30 July …

After the 90 day period beginning on May 1st, if you STILL haven’t filed your tax return you’ll receive a further £300 penalty (or 5% of the tax due; whichever is highest) plus a possible additional fine equivalent to 100% (or more) of the tax due, depending on how serious the case is.

Each of these individual penalties is in addition to the preceding ones.

So, to conclude, if by 30 July 2015 you STILL haven’t filed your latest tax return you will be in for a minimum penalty of an incredible £1300.00 and that’s in addition to the tax you owe. Also, Read more

CIS - tax refunds for construction workers

Construction Industry Scheme (CIS): How to Claim a Tax Refund

CIS - tax refunds for construction workersIt’s now time to start the process of claiming your tax refund if you are a subcontractor working within the construction industry and have been paying tax, in advance, through the Construction Industry Scheme (‘CIS’). In this article we will tell you how you qualify and how to claim your tax refund. First, though, a little bit of background to the scheme:

The CIS Scheme

The Construction Industry Scheme, or CIS, is a scheme whereby a contractor in the construction industry usually deducts a proportion of the money due to their subcontractor, at source. The deducted amount is then passed direct to HMRC and counts towards the subcontractor’s tax and National Insurance, the tax element effectively being paid in advance. The exact proportion deducted depends on whether the subcontractor concerned has registered under the CIS system. If the subcontractor has not registered, the deduction will usually be made at a rate of 30%. If they have already registered, then the deduction will usually be made at a rate of 20%. Either way, by the financial year end, the amount of tax deducted at source will usually end up being more than they really needed to have paid, simply because it won’t have factored in the personal allowance which every UK taxpayer is entitled to (most UK citizens can earn up to £10,000 before paying tax at time of writing, this figure being set to rise to £10,600 in the tax year 2015-16, 10,800 a year later then increasing to £11,000 by 2017-18 following the recent budget proposals). Hence, many subcontractors in the construction industry will be due a tax refund because of the overpayment. The good news is that the time to apply for the refund is pretty much now, so get in touch if you’d like our help claiming.

What kind of work does CIS cover?

You qualify to be in the CIS system if you are a subcontractor who supplies construction work to buildings. This includes labouring, decorating, site preparation and refurbishment but excludes things like architecture, surveying services, the hire of scaffolding without labour, the fitting of carpets, the delivery of materials, and finally non-construction type services such as site facilities (canteens etc.).

What if your business is not in the UK?

Even if your business is abroad, the same rules apply if you work as a subcontractor within the UK. However there are some slightly different rules regarding the treatment of taxation for non-resident workers from countries which have ‘Double Taxation’ treaties with the UK (we can, of course, also help with that — just get in contact).

Registering for CIS

If you haven’t already registered for CIS as a sub-contractor, Taxfile can help to do this for you. You’ll need to be registered for Self Assessment (we can also help with this) and this will give you your UTR (unique taxpayer reference) number. We’ll also need your name, National Insurance number, your legal business/trading name and contact details. Once registered with CIS one of the immediate benefits will be that you’ll then have tax deductions made at the 20% rate rather than at 30%, which would otherwise be the case. If your business is a legal partnership you will also need to register it for CIS but this would need to be done in addition to being registered as an individual or sole trader. Of course, Taxfile can help with that too. Once you have been registered with CIS and have passed certain eligibility criteria, it is also possible to apply for ‘gross payment status’ meaning that you’ll then be paid by the contractor without the usual ‘at source’ deductions. Instead you’ll need to pay any outstanding tax and National Insurance at the financial year end; however HMRC will review your business each year to check that you still qualify for this status (paying tax late and/or submitting returns late would put your gross payment status at risk).

Offsetting Expenses against your tax

Taxfile can also help you to offset certain expenses against your subcontractor income. This means that any tax refund will be larger — or any tax outstanding will be lower. We can offset 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 Deadline

You have only HOURS left to submit your Tax Return!

Tax Return DeadlineYou’re running out of time to submit your tax return and have just HOURS left! We are here to help you fill in and submit your self assessment tax returns to HMRC on Saturday 31st (by appointment only, 9-1pm) so come and see us quickly or you may miss the HMRC deadline. If you do miss it, you’ll get an automatic fine of £100 minimum – and it could get significantly worse (up to £1,600) if you continue to delay.

It doesn’t matter if you have zero tax to pay – you still need to submit your tax return on time. You also need to have paid HMRC any tax due for the 2013-14 financial year. So don’t miss your last chance to get our professional help with filing of your tax return!

ACT NOW and contact us on 020 8761 8000 or book an appointment online.

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George Osborne

How the Chancellor’s 2014 Autumn Statement affects YOU!

George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced his Autumn Statement on Wednesday (3 Dec 2014) in what could be seen as a mini budget. Here we focus on the key announcements, concentrating on those relating purely to taxation, as it is those which affect you, our customers, most directly.

1). First some good news: The UK is seeing the fastest growth out of all the G7 countries, and the number of people employed is at its highest point ever. This is good for all of us because it restores optimism in the UK economy, higher employment speaking for itself.

2). As we announced in a separate blog post, Stamp Duty (Land Tax) has been given a major shake-up and, for anyone buying a house for £935,000 or less, the amount of Stamp Duty which they’ll have to pay will be less, and sometimes very significant. See our separate blog post and infographic for more detail.

3). In the financial year 2015-16, the tax-free personal allowance (which is the amount you can earn before you start to pay any tax) will increase to 10,600 which is an increase of £600. So … more tax-free money in your pocket, which is good.

4). Economy flights will become cheaper for under 12s from 1 May 2015 and under 16s from 1 March 2016, because their tickets will become exempt from tax on those dates. So … a small concession, but another welcome one. Average 4-person families will save £26 for flights within Europe and £142 on flights to the U.S.

5). From 3 December 2014, spouses will be able to inherit their partner’s ISA benefits should their partner pass away. Currently this is not the case and the change will mean that, from 6 April 2015, the surviving spouse or civil partner will be able to Read more

Taxfile passes HMRC inspection with flying colours!

HMRC inspect high volume tax return agentsHMRC have recently been targeting tax agents who file high volumes of tax returns and, as one of the UK’s top 100 tax return preparers by volume, Taxfile had the honour of having an inspection by HMRC inspectors during late October.

The two senior inspectors met all Taxfile staff who prepare tax returns and analysed the procedures undertaken by them to arrive at the figures entered on customer returns. They also reviewed, on a spot-check basis, a selection of files worked upon over this Summer. Analysis included checks on procedures, figure work and record keeping including the level of detail recorded in notes. The result was a resounding success – Taxfile passed with flying colours – of course!

HMRC were also satisfied with the way Taxfile had dealt with any occasional instances of missing client receipts. They reiterated that, where clients had lost receipts, some kind of proof of purchase was always needed in lieu of the official receipts. For example bank statements showing that the purchase was made via a debit card or cheque, or credit card statements showing the purchase was made originally with a Visa or MasterCard. Our own recommendation is to Read more

Happy With Our Service? Write a testimonial & receive £10 off!

customer-testimonialsIf you are happy with our service we’d love to hear more about your experience with Taxfile as we are putting together a page of customer testimonials on our website(s). They need only be short if you haven’t got much time, but longer comments are fine too! As a thank you, you’ll receive a £10 off voucher which you can offset against your next Taxfile bill. Please submit your testimonial here. Many thanks!

If you’re not happy, of course please let us know right away and we can work out how to put things right. We want all our customers to be happy!

HMRC are clamping down on landlords

HMRC are clamping down on landlords who do not declare income from lettingsHMRC are constantly reviewing who has and has not declared income properly from letting out property, whether that’s from short-term lets, long-term lets, holiday lets, letting rooms to students or to workforces. And with new, sophisticated, data sharing systems now in full force across many agencies, authorities, online, via tip-offs and surveillance, the Government has its sights on an estimated 1.5 million landlords who they think have under-paid tax.

Taxfile are here to help landlords get their tax right and to make sure all genuine expenditure is offset against their final tax bill. They can also help out when things have become complicated by liaising with HMRC on behalf of the landlord under fire. Contact Taxfile for an informal chat, without obligation (you can even book an appointment online) or ask for a copy of our ‘Landlords Beware’ information sheet.

Online banking may save you money!

Online banking can save you money on your accounting costsDo you have online banking? Sending us downloaded statement information straight from your online banking means we can more easily import the data into our system and check for expenses and income which might otherwise have been overlooked. It can also fill in the gaps where you are missing receipts or invoices. This simple service could therefore save both time and money! Most online banking platforms allow you to export this information, for example as a CSV file, and this format is perfect for our accounting system.

Don’t have online banking? No problem! We also have a new system where we can scan in your paper statements straight into our ‘Bankstream’ accounting platform, making analysis faster and easier.

Either way, ask us for further information or, better still, send us a sample download of a typical month’s bank data (or Read more