It covers everything you need to know and answers all the most commonly asked questions including…
- Do I need to file a tax return?
- What are ‘benefits in kind’?
- Can I manage my own tax return?
- How do I register for self-assessment?
- Deadlines and penalties
- Allowable expenses
- Making Tax Digital (MTD)
We’ve includes a taster from the guide below. If you’d like to find out more, simply enter your details and away you go.
A sample from the guide
Allowable expenses
One of the advantages of submitting a tax return is that it allows you to claim various reliefs and allowances that can help bring your tax bill down.
In general, business expenses for your primary employment will be dealt with by your employer, through PAYE. In some cases, though, high-earning individuals might agree with their employers to handle these on their tax return instead.
For example, if you work from home at least part of the time, you’ll want to claim a portion of your household expenses against your income tax bill.
This is only possible if you are required by your employer to work from home, rather than choosing to do so – but if, like many people, you have needed to work from home as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, you should be eligible for this relief.
You can choose to claim a fixed rate of £6 a week without needing to provide evidence of your extra costs.
Or, if you don’t mind the extra record-keeping in return for more accurate tax relief, you can claim for the exact amount of extra costs you’ve incurred as a result of working from home. You’ll need to provide evidence for this in the form of bills, receipts, contracts and so on.
You can also claim tax relief if you travel as part of your job. This will be different depending on whether you or your employer own the vehicle.
If you’re using your own vehicle, you’ll need to keep records of when you went on work journeys, and how many miles you travelled. Then you should add up the mileage for each type of vehicle you used for work purposes, and deduct any amount your employer pays towards your costs.
Using that information, you’ll be able to claim tax relief on a mileage rate set by the government. This rate includes all of the costs involved in owning and running your vehicle, so you won’t be able to make separate claims for things like road tax or repairs, for example.
If you use a company car, or another vehicle owned or leased by your employer, you’ll be able to claim relief for the cost of fuel or electricity, so you should keep records of the amount you’ve spent.
And if your job requires you to pay for a professional body membership, or you subscribe to an HMRC-approved body or society that’s relevant to your job, you may be able to claim relief on those fees.
When we talk to our clients, we ask lots of questions to work out if there are any allowable expenses it might not have occurred to them to claim. You’d be surprised how many opportunities get overlooked.