Tax or Treat!

As well as being Halloween, the 31 October marks the filing deadline for paper tax returns. It is also the start of the three month count down to 31 January when most individuals should aim to file their personal tax returns online.

TaxAntics can help prevent unwelcome fireworks by ensuring tax returns are professionally prepared and make the most beneficial use of allowances and reliefs.

In addition to making sure no one pays more tax than they should have to, there are a number of ways to ease the burden of meeting a personal income tax liability.

Tax Collected through PAYE

Anyone who is likely to owe less than £3,000 as a balancing payment can have the tax they owe collected through their 2021/2022 PAYE coding notice if they already pay tax through pay as you earn (PAYE) and the return is filed online by 30 December 2020 (or by 31 October for paper returns).

This option is not available to anyone who does not:

• have enough PAYE income for HMRC to collect the tax; or
• would have more than double their normal PAYE income tax deducted; or
• pay more than half their normal PAYE income in taxes.

Where the conditions are met, HMRC would automatically seek to collect the tax through PAYE unless the taxpayer specifically indicates otherwise in their tax return.

Coronavirus and Time to Pay

2020 has been an extremely  difficult year and the government has provided an extensive range of measures to assist individuals and businesses cope in these unprecedented times.

These measures included the ability for individuals to defer their 31 July 2020 payment on account to 31 January 2021 if they have been affected by the coronavirus and are struggling to meet tax payment deadlines. The government has introduced further measures to help businesses and the self employed including extending its time to pay facility for individual self assessment taxpayers.

For anyone with no other payment plans or debts with HMRC who owes less than £30,000 on 31 January 2021, a payment plan can be set up to spread the cost of their latest self assessment liability over twelve months. To take advantage of this, the individual must have their tax returns up to date and enter the arrangement within 60 days of the payment due date. For almost everyone, this will be 1 April 2021 although we strongly recommend organising a payment plan well in advance.

As well as helping meet statutory deadlines, we can also provide practical tax advice on how to structure assets more tax efficiently. Avoid a winter of discontent and contact us to find out how we can help you!

Contact us  now to discuss how we could help you.