“Tax Return Season is Here Again
With the deadline for filing personal tax returns, or self-assessments in HMRC speak, now approaching rapidly on 31 January, we thought it would be a good time to look at a handy checklist for the preparation of your return.
Eaves and Co would be happy to assist with preparing and filing your return and can take the stress out of the process for you.
Helpful Tips:
- Start by getting all the information together that you will need first. This will make it easier to finish the process in one go. Doing these in good time will avoid a last minute rush.
- A good starting point will be pulling together P60s and P11Ds from any employments (and P45s if you changed jobs during the year).
- You should also get details of interest you received from your banks. Most banks now give an easy summary of this through their online banking sites.
- Pension contributions should also be considered. If you are an employee, you may have had contributions deducted from your pay which will be shown on your payslips. If you made separate payments to a personal pension then you should have received an annual statement from your pension provider.
- Dividends are also a common source of income and dividend vouchers should be collated. If you have your investments through one broker/platform they should be able to prepare a report for the year for you.
- For the self-employed, obtaining accounts from your business will be key. Ideally if you are under MTD for VAT you will have been using bookkeeping software which keeps things up to date and should make things relatively easy. Otherwise, a good accountant can help here.
- Buy-to-let investors will need details of their rents received during the year as well as any allowable expenses such as repairs, management fees and insurance. If you have a mortgage it will be important to obtain the interest figure that you paid during the tax year (the capital repayment element is not allowable so will need to be split out).
- The other main income source would be pensions. Former employment pensions would usually provide P60s whereas for the state pension you will need to look at how much you actually received during the tax year. Keeping a record of this during the year can be helpful when it comes to prepare the return.
- Other more complex issues can arise, for example foreign income and income for employee share schemes. Taking tax advice here is important and can help ensure that everything is reported correctly and avoid a headache in the future.
If you have any questions or would like Eaves and Co to help prepare your return, please feel free to get in touch today.”