You will be a criminal if you do any work other than PAYE.

[Itisnoteasybeingdifferent]

Because from next year you must submit four tax returns a year on line. If you don't you will be subject to penalties and fines.

If you rent out property, do any self employed work, have shares, do any sort of trading you will be swept up in this.

It's from 2020, and that's what you pay an accountant for! Hardly makes the self employed criminal

How will you be a criminal?

Sorry, the title of your thread doesn't seem to tie in with your post. Why will people be criminals just because they have to submit four online forms? Surely they will only be a criminal as you put it, if they fail to do so?

It's not four full tax returns per year it will be a summary of income & expenditure & will be deferred for a year for anyone under the VAT threshold.

I agree it's a pain & I think it's an additional burden on the self employed & businesses but it's not going to turn anyone into a criminal.

Many accounting systems are online now anyway so to submit a summary of this 4 times a year won't be a huge deal!

There must be a roll out period? When is 'next year'? The upcoming tax year? 2018? Some other time?

DP has been self employed* for years and we have not had/seen any information about this and I take more notice than most about money/budget stuff. I listen to both editions of Moneybox every week, read the weekend papers and look at moneysavingexpert etc.

I also have a small share portfolio and am taxed at source on the dividends so don't owe anything and have never been made aware that I had to do a tax return for them?

• For a lot of people, they are not self employed by choice or in order to defraud the taxman. It's just in the current world anyone who wants to work on a building site (DP is a plant driver), you are forced to pretend that you are self employed and work through an agency and an umbrella company who will force you into tax avoidance to keep anywhere near a reasonable proportion of what you are supposed to be earning and even then, take a nice little chunk for themselves. If you don't go along with this, you don't get any work.

It's called Making Tax Digital.

As usual it's a bit of a code as Hmrc Have not released much information about how it will all work in practice but it was announced in the 2015 budget & should be fully in place by 2020. There will be no fines during the first year of operation.

Barbara I think you'll find legitimate contractors and owners of Ltd Companies find work perfectly adequately - no one forces tax avoidance and umbrella companies - they are a choice and those found to be using them are being heavily penalised

Actually I do see where Barbara is coming from. The company I work for is very very unusual in not employing sub contract labour, only true specialist companies.

Your post makes no sense.

I think you mean if you do work and don't properly declare it and do your tax returns, you will be a criminal. Which is true today, has always been true, and will always be true.
So bit bloody useless really.

Alexander that doesn't change the fact Barbara's said people are being forced to pretend they are self employed - anyone doing so deserves the consequences

It's a bit like when RTI came in paye, seemed awful submitting every month, the reality was it made end of year easier, no big deal and I don't think it worries anyone now.

It's annoying but it will make end of year easier, and certainly won't make anyone a criminal unless they are working cash in hand and avoiding taxes.

Why would you be a criminal for doing work other than PAYE?

BTW, it isn't four tax returns a year - it's four submissions of what will apparently be three line accounts - so total income, total expenses and profit.

This data cannot be used to generate enquiries and can be just an estimate - the actual payment dates for tax have not changed.

People with VAT returns will have been doing pretty much this already for years.

Its a PITA but hardly something to get hysterical about.

I quite like the idea, no more once a year binge accounting for me and no more dipping in and out of payments on account and nagging dh about saving for tax. I am self employed, always done my own tax return, now do dh's as he is self employed twice over plus the return for our rental flat. And the Companies house requirement for our freehold. It's not masses more work it's really just divide by four and do quarterly so yabu can't see how it will criminalise me.

Yes I know about this, massive pain in the arse. Do you need to buy accounting software too to be able to submit digitally? Sage is bloody expensive

The only issue we have with RTI is that it forced us to use expensive software wheras begire we did weekly & monthly wages using free wage cards & tax tables very efficiently.

You appear to have spectacularly misunderstood, op . Get a grip.

The point I was making about bogus self employement and umbrella companies in the construction industry is fully described here.

He's employed by the umbrella company on paper, but all they do is payroll and charge a fortune for it. It's supposed to be around £15 ph, but they actually pay NMW plus dubiously calculated expenses. It's the same way that Uber, Deliveroo etc operate, who keep losing court cases over it and none of the actual workers are earning much at all, it's not like IT contracting where people are on £1k+ pw or whatever, most probably earn less than £20k pa.

He actually hasn't done much of this work this year, because he also does something else that is 'freelance' and allegedly self employed.

But the reality is that it's nothing of the sort when you read HMRCs rules on it, it's just no-one in the other industry that provides the work will take anyone on as an employee or give them employment rights.

We're lucky that we can afford for him to work like this because I have a secure proper job but it must be awful for anyone trying to do this as the main earner for a family.

Floaty, they reckon Excel will be OK. No idea about Sage.

Alexander, you don't need expensive software, HMRC make it easy to do without and there is very cheap software out there that works well. That is what I have found, I do some payroll for small companies as I am retired from fulltime employment.

Floatycat, if its for a small business Sageone payroll is good and quite cheap, don't know about the accounting one. I use excel for my own tax returns and I quite like the idea of doing it 4 times a year, it will discipline me to keep on top of things. I accept you can't please everyone.

Sage is expensive and complicated, I could never really get into the swing of it. Find Quickbooks very good though.

I think this is just following on from all the changes made to PAYE, etc. (which now has to be reported online each week). I'm not self-employed but used to be - also one who would leave things to the last minute - agree additional reporting is always a PITA but at the same time, it would have forced me to be more organised and keep track better throughout the year. In the long run, it seems like a change for the better.

I hope Excel will be OK. My SE (secondary) business turns over £1500 p.a!! It's a voluntary thing but makes me a small amount of money, which I declare to HMRC despite the fact that nobody else I know who does this seems to bother

Any requirement for tiny businesses like mine will be a PITA and most likely end up driving them out.

We have too many employees for the free HMRC payroll software.

Am hoping MTD will be different, more like entering the monthly CIS or quarterly VAT returns.