Panic sets in around January when around the country the holiday season's hangovers bring in an annual fear: the dreaded tax return. Even if you have an accountant you still have to provide them with all your financial information for them to get going. And if you don't have a tax return accountant you'll have to find one — prompto.
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January is the busiest time of year for accountants and consequently it is worth putting up some tips on helping your accountant complete your tax return in time and avoid the making mistakes in the mad rush.
Make sure you have an accountant! Do not leave shopping around and speaking to accountants until the very last minute. It is a hugely important decision to hire an accountant — getting it right could save you thousands of pounds in tax. So getting it wrong might cost you.
Our straight forward form to get quotes from tax return accountants is so simple and painless we reckon it takes no more than 2-3 minutes to fill out. And it costs you nothing. And we normally are able to provide 4 quotes within 12 hours. You'll also see ebay style feedback reviews from previous clients.
Once you have chosen your tax return accountant if your affairs get complex the 'shoe box' style of filing and storing your financial affairs becomes problematic. It means it takes so much longer for either you or your accountant to go through and get all the information in the right order so it is easy to complete your tax return. This brings us to the next point.
The time consuming part is you need to ensure your accountant has everything they need to complete your tax return. Information is key — the last thing either they or you want is to complete the whole thing, and then for you to realise you have left something daft out like your pension contributions — which are of course tax deductable (you be a fool to omit this information).
So make sure your tax return accountant has all the information to hand — so they can complete everything at once (which will help keep the bill lower too!).
If you are self employed this is also your chance to make critical decisions. Should you pay yourself a dividend to avoid NIC on any salary? Are there any annual allowances to use (such as retirement relief) to make sure any capital gains are as tax free as possible. This is where a good tax return accountant will come into their own.
Even as an ordinary tax payer this is your case to make sure everything is as tax efficient as possible. Consider using your ISA allowance so any future capital gains are tax free. Now is also the time to make last minute any charitable contributions to get gift aid tax relief. What about increasing your pension contributions?
You should talk through all these options with your tax return accountant. Because while doing your tax return may be a mad rush it is also a great opportunity to get things fixed.