With 7 days to go until the Self Assessment deadline for 21/22 we have had several individuals contact us for our support with their tax returns. Whilst we pride ourselves on being very helpful and supportive with our clients, it is not always possible to meet everyones deadlines when the deadline is fast approaching.
Here are 5 valuable tips/advice to survive the next week if you find yourself still needing to submit before 31st January:
We know it is too late for this to be really helpful right now for 21/22 but.......get yourself organised for 22/23. Make sure you bookkeeping is up to date as close to the end of year as possible as you will forget things 9 months later. We start working on our clients tax returns early in April, and prioritise our most organised ones to ensure they are not left to the last minute. This gives us more time to support those who need a little more guidance.
Make sure you know your Government Gateway logins & passwords. This may seem very obvious, but scrambling around last minute finding your login details from more than12 months ago will only add more stress. By having an accountant who is your HMRC tax agent this can take this stress away on an annual basis, knowing they have everything they need and can even talk to HMRC on your behalf if needed.
We are very happy supporting our clients and reducing their stress levels at a busy time by completing and submitting their tax returns for them. All you will need to do is approve our work and we'll do the rest. We even follow everything up with meetings to discuss what we have done and why we have done it. So ....Get someone else to do it!
HMRC have stated that at the turn of the year 5.7million individuals were yet to submit their tax return, so remember....you are not alone.
Not only do you need to submit your tax return by 23:59 on 31st January, you need to have paid as well. So don't forget to pay. Try to monitor your cash flow in the build up to tax payments, ensure they are in your forecasts and not a surprise payment. HMRC have a payment scheme called Time to Pay, which helps you to spread payments and make a plan. We can't really help you with this one, but can support you with cash flow forecasting to ensure it stings as little as possible in July & January.
Bonus - Yes we know this is more than 5!!!!!
Tax returns can be a very complicated and stressful thing, especially if it's been left to the last minute and work is busy, and your scrambling around for things from over a year ago. We've all been there, and having someone to offer a bit of advice and guidance at this time can be a very valuable thing. So please...Don't be afraid to ask for help. We are always just a phone call, whatsapp or email away for our clients and will help them as soon as we can.
