Anyone else still need to do their tax return?

[GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat]

Not just their return but the whole years accounts.

I’m fucked. I will get it done in time, they’re not especially complex, just long winded and a faff. But why do I do this to myself??

Why do you HAVE to do it if you earn over £100k? Is it because rich people need tax breaks?

I did mine yesterday (will never be likely to bother the 40% rate, let alone the £100k bracket!) and reminded myself again how utterly dire the HMRC ‘help’ buttons are! ‘If you are due xxx relief, enter xxx in the box’ - no mention of what xxx actually might be and how you can tell if you might be due it! Also, ‘if you started paying a student loan before 2019, tick yes’. I started paying my loan well before 2019, but I actually paid it off last year at last, so I ticked ‘no’ - but that’s not what the question technically asked!

The company I work for wouldn't do one for less than £1200 (although I do work for a big 4 accountancy firm and the returns we do are generally pretty complicated with lots of investment income/property/big cgt transactions etc.)

DH's is done by a big 4 firm (bulk arrangement for his firm) and he pays £600 plus vat.

@MaxPanic - correct, it doesn't work that way with fuel cards, they are set up differently. You probably only pay tax on what you use for personal miles, likely 40%.

Re salary if you're working through ltd co - it's absolutely not worth paying yourself over the employer's NI lower threshold as that adds 13.8% to the bill. That's why people take £8,500.

I actually don't currently take any pay, all my pay either goes in the pension or is paid as a dividend.

I pay £315 to my accountant for doing my business accounts for corp tax and uploading etc, and my personal self assessment. Seems reasonable to me, just wish she wouldn't wait til the last week in Jan when I send her the stuff far earlier.

Though I'm bewildered how people can get it together for 8th April - it takes weeks for all the banks to send the tax statements and if you've had any employment you might have a P11D which isn't until June, or a P60 which come with April payroll but most companies do them towards the end of the month.

Mine is very simple - income from any employment, dividends from my company, savings interest under £300, contributions to pension (mine directly and the company) and charity donations. Though last tax year I invested in an eis so got a rebate for that.

Why do you HAVE to do it if you earn over £100k? Is it because rich people need tax breaks?

No, it's to make them personally liable and accountable for reporting everything and to keep tabs on when they start to lose the zero rate band.

@MaryLennoxsScowl

Why are you doing a self assessment?

I never found an accountant that helpful to be honest. My accounts are quite simple and the tax return would only take a couple of hours to do online if I didn't stop every 10 minutes to make tea, run around panicking, eat something, wish I hadn't given up smoking etc. Despite the simplicity, I still never do it till January.

Remember how good you're going to feel when you've done yours. I actually completed mine last week and have been bathing in bliss since then.

I did mine yesterday.

@GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat I think we are in the same line of work and yes, we have a few special arrangements.

I’m doing mine tomorrow! 🙈

Still to finalise mine but I know rough figures and put them through system to generate approximate tax owed in their calculation. Thankfully no big surprises and now I just need to get all figures precise before submitting.

When your salary is hits 100k, you start to lose the personal allowance until it goes down to £nil at £125k. Perhaps HMRC want to check that employers have applied the reduction correctly?

When your salary is hits 100k, you start to lose the personal allowance until it goes down to £nil at £125k. Perhaps HMRC want to check that employers have applied the reduction correctly?

It's not the employers job to deal with the situation between 100-125k. They just apply the PAYE tax code as issued by HMRC. The employer can't possibly know the employee's personal tax position so are in no position to deal with the removal of the personal allowance (nor is is their responsibility). There is arguably a moral responsibility for payroll dept to flag to the employee if their wages breach £100k to tell them they may lose PA, but they have no "tools" to change tax deductions etc.

I never found an accountant that helpful to be honest.

Which is absolutely fine, if you have the time, inclination, confidence and ability to do it yourself. Just in the same way that some people do their own decorating instead of getting a decorator in, or others employ a cleaner because they don't want to do it themselves.

I've got clients with incredibly simple affairs who could easily do it themselves, and I tell them that every year, but they still want me to do it for their peace of mind and sanity.

Just because you do it yourself doesn't mean everyone else can or wants to.

Love this thread. Glad I am an FD rather than in practice. Waves to @poppet31

And accounts are done!!

I just need to submit which won’t take long at all, will do that tomorrow

Oh and pay

For those saying why would I employ an accountant ? Because if you do it yourself you're at risk of doing what some prospective new clients did and don't declare a wage when claiming working tax credit - and HMRC now want £5200 back off them because they think they earn no money. Whoops

But the accountant only declares what you tell them. Having an accountant doesn't automatically make you immune from mistakes!

Well done, Georgie!

I pay an accountant ..it’s not a particularly complex account but saves me the stress

Paid up today ☹️

I think from the replies to some of my comments makes it clear why am accountant is important, I own a company, employ multiple people and what works for me clearly doesn't for others who are a ltd company with no other employees (aka paying myself the full allowance) I don't work for anyone else and my accountant does mine, company accounts and payroll so gets access to much of what she needs then I let her know about additional income from investments and charitable donations.
Tax is important, every country with a high standard of living correlates with higher taxes, we all need to pay our fair share, an accountant isn't about making sure you pay as little as possible but that you are paying the correct amount, not too much, not too little.

an accountant isn't about making sure you pay as little as possible but that you are paying the correct amount, not too much, not too little

Exactly this.

Done and paid

I’ll definitely get it done in May this year.....I’ll never leave it this late again

Anyone else still left to do theirs?!

Thats what i pay an accountant for. If it was left to me i would never do it

Got mine done in the early hours of the morning. I now understand what a balance sheet and P&L actually are (20 years after having no clue at university), as well as the mysterious ‘ledgers’ and ‘journals’ I used to hear referred to in my first admin job. Accountant next year. The only reason I didn’t have one this year was that no one I asked thought their accountant was good enough to recommend (catalogue of things being late, wrong, badly explained), I kind of wanted to understand it myself, and figured that with a simple business that would be possible.

Good luck to anyone still struggling!

But the accountant only declares what you tell them. Having an accountant doesn't automatically make you immune from mistakes!

But a decent accountant will check things over and do a "sanity check" to make sure things look right, watch out for common mistakes, etc.

If I just popped the numbers given by my clients into the software, I'd say about half would be wrong.

I cross check against previous years declarations to check for anything missing, I "prompt" clients to check for other things they've not told me about, such as gift aid donations, pension contributions, re-invested dividends, etc which are very easy to forget. I also query figures they give me which just look wrong. For small business clients, I pick up on things they've forgotten, such as mileage, use of home allowance, postage, subsistence, etc, and also things I'd expect, such as PI insurance and ongoing training costs for a professional or the annual gas safety check for landlords. If total income is over £50k, I ask whether they' (or their partner) is claiming child benefit.

Putting numbers in boxes is only a tiny part of the job. It's thinking and checking about the boxes without numbers in them that is where the time and effort goes. Plus tax saving opportunities, such as change of a year end, incorporation, etc.

I'm an accountant and agree with user it really isn't as simple as putting the clients information in the software, I would say 95% of the time the client has missed/not thought of something.
That said I do try and persuade people to do their own as my firm are expensive (£395 + VAT this year) but that's because most of ours can get quite complicated, we actually very rarely make 100% recovery on that cost.
Only 23/167 to go can't wait for my on Friday night!!

Just submitted and paid, every year I say I will do it early. Maybe we should start the thread in May.