Last October we wrote this blog and it’s such an important message that it deserves repeating.
Three benefits of doing your tax return early
- Time – pulling everything together early means there is time to get help from a professional if you need it.
- Knowledge – calculating the payments early means you can plan for that inevitable tax bill.
- Peace of mind – one of the least exciting (for non-accountants!) tasks of the year is crossed off your to-do list.
Further, by thinking about this before the end of the year you’ll be helping more than just yourself.
The race to 31 January is a difficult time for most accountants, and a stressed out human working under extreme pressure to a tight deadline could easily make mistakes, however good their systems and processes.
So, if there is a chance to remove that risk, why not take it?!
Why you should do your 2017/18 tax return now
Although the HMRC deadline is 31 January 2019, if your personal tax bill last year was over £1,000 you’ll have a payment on account to make at the end of July.
This is an estimated payment based on the 2016/17 results. However, those are now at least 16 months old and there’s a strong possibility that your 2017/18 profit will be different from the 16/17 year. This means the estimated tax bill will almost certainly be wrong.
If your profits increased but you wait until January to calculate the tax bill you’ll have extra to pay without much notice – the last thing you need after Christmas.
Equally, if profits went down you could be overpaying tax this month, and you might even be due a refund. Better that being in your bank account than sitting with HMRC!
We advise thinking about your tax returns as soon as possible, because you deserve to know the impacts of your business results. Leaving things until the last minute is not going to help you plan for the future, and it’s not the way we do things here.
So if you’re fed up of looking back over your shoulder all the time, if working to HMRC’s deadlines isn’t helping your business, and if you really want to have more control over your future, Kung Fu Accounting is here, ready willing and able to transform the way you see accounting! Click the button and get in touch to find out exactly how we’ll do that.
