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Personal and Tax Planning
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I haven't filed my tax return - am I in trouble?
It's past 30 September, and I have not filed my Tax Return. Am I in trouble?
Only if you wanted the Tax Office to calculate your tax for you, or you had a small (up to £2,000) liability for 2003/04 which you wanted the Revenue to collect through your 2005/06 PAYE code.
The rule is that you have until 31 January 2005 to file your 2004 Tax Return - reporting income and gains for the year ended 5 April 2004. But if you leave it until then, you will have to work your tax liability out for yourself and you lose the chance to have small amounts of tax due collected through your PAYE code.
If your Tax Return is filed late, you will be liable to a penalty of £100, or the tax due, if less. There is a second penalty, again equal to the lesser of the tax due and £100 if your Tax Return is not filed by 31 July 2004.
There are, though, some circumstances in which a late Tax Return will not result in a penalty. By law you must ask for a Tax Return by 5 October after the end of the tax year if you know you have tax to pay. In such cases you have three months from the date the Tax Return is issued to complete and file it.
Can I use estimates if I don't have the correct figures?
You need to be very careful about using provisional figures. First, you will have to notify the Tax Office that your Tax Return contains provisional figures - then you will have to explain why the correct figures are not available, and the date by which you will be able to provide them. So, yes, you can use provisional figures, but only temporarily and only if you have a good reason for using them - having left it too late to obtain the figures is not an excuse which the Tax Office will accept!
If the Tax Office rejects your Tax Return because you used provisional figures and they did not accept your excuse, you may be given more time to file. But the law says that you must retain the records to enable you to complete your Tax Return, so the onus really is on you to make sure you have all the figures to complete your Tax Return in good time.
We specialise in ensuring that our clients' Tax Returns are filed on time. Take the worry out of your Tax Return and trust us with your next Tax Return. If you know anyone who would like us to complete his or her Tax Return, do please let us know.
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