It’s that time of year again when the mad rush to complete your self-assessment tax return is just around the corner, so we’ve put together a guide to help you avoid the deadlines and ensure that yours is completed without a penalty.
Last year, a record amount of people submitted their tax returns to HM Revenue & Customs over the festive period. Over 2,000 people processed their tax return on Christmas day last year alone, with a further 24,000 people completing their self-assessments on New Year’s Eve. An additional 600, hopefully sober, people filed tax returns in the first 10 hours of New Year’s Day.
As the festive season approaches it may be easy to ignore or put off the deadline, but it will come around quickly and you will want to avoid dealing with it over the holiday period and later. To get ahead of the January rush, now would be the time if you haven’t already done so, to start to gather your paperwork together. That way, you will avoid having to make excuses to the Revenue.
Here are some of the worst excuses that HM Revenue & Customs cited last year:
- “My bad back means that I can’t go up the stairs, which is where my tax return was”
- “Our business doesn’t really do anything”
- “After seeing a volcano erupt on the news, I just couldn’t focus on anything else”
- “My dog ate my tax return…. and all of the reminders”
- “My husband told me the deadline was 31st March”
HM Revenue & Customs do consider exceptional circumstances, but dismissed the above excuses as either untrue or not a good enough reason to avoid a penalty.
The deadline for online submissions is midnight on the 31st January 2018, however paper tax returns must be submitted three months earlier on the 31st October 2017.
At Stack & Jones we take the stress out of submitting your tax return out of your hands. We have over 25 years of experience in dealing directly with HM Revenue & Customs, to ease your tax worries. We offer a free one hour initial consultation to all new clients to discuss the work that you require us to carry out.
To get in contact with us, call on 01869 277 973 or email on email@stackandjones.co.uk.
Sources: BT & ICAEW. Image: Wikimedia
