Grasp The Nettle
If you are one of the many taxpayers who has yet to file their 2008/09 Personal Tax Return, Ian Whitburn, Tax Manager with local accountants Ferguson Maidment has a special message for you.
The Revenue’s 31 October deadline has passed. This means that if you now file a paper version of your 2008/09 Tax Return, you are likely to receive a £100 penalty. Furthermore, the taxman cannot guarantee to work out your tax bill for you in time for the 31 January 2010 payment deadline. As a consequence, you will have to either estimate your bill in January and run the risk of paying too much or too little tax, or wait for the taxman’s calculation to filter through before paying and risk incurring interest and surcharges on late payment.
This is not a satisfactory state of affairs and Ian recommends that anyone without an accountant who is filing returns in January, should use the H.M. Revenue & Customs self-assessment online service.
As Ian explains: “The Revenue’s software is very user-friendly and provides an instant calculation of your 2008/09 tax liability and also your 2009/10 payments on account (if applicable). You do need to register for the service beforehand though, so don’t leave it to the last minute”.
H.M. Revenue & Customs is very keen to encourage taxpayers to file online because it eases the department’s workload and eliminates the risk of transposition errors when returns are processed.
Last year over 5.8million tax returns were filed online, up from 3.8million in the previous year and the Revenue are expecting 9.5million this year.
We all hate filing our tax returns: It is a chore. It is time-consuming and all those fiddly bits of paper you should have kept never seem to be where you thought you put them. But if you grasp the nettle and file your 2008/09 Tax Return online now, you might just save yourself some money.
If you would prefer to leave the form-filling to the professionals, Ferguson Maidment’s experienced Tax Team can offer an efficient internet filing service at a very competitive rate using HMRC–approved commercial software.