Sweet And Simple Tax Returns

If you have complicated tax affairs, you probably need to fill in a self assessment tax form. Here are six facts to help you, plus some notable dates.

According to financial advisory service Smith & Williamson, if you earn £25,000 to £40,000, you're likely to pay around 36% in taxes this year. If you're moving house, the figure will probably be more like 41% to 50%, thanks to stamp duty. And if you're a heavy-smoking, petrol-guzzling car-driving alcoholic, you'll pay even more! To put it another way, taxes suck big time.

They suck even more if you're one of the 9 million people who have to fill in a self assessment tax return. To help you in your task, here are six tips from the Daily Mail Tax Guide 2006/2007:

If you're not sent a tax return, you must tell your tax office by 5 October 2006 if, during the period 5 April 2005 to 4 April 2006, you had any new source of taxable income that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) doesn't know about. You must also tell them if you became liable to higher-rate tax on taxed investment income, or if you made a taxable gain.
It's worth checking any calculations HMRC sends you on form SA302. Although calculations are done electronically, it has to manually input the information from your form (unless you file through the Internet). They may have made mistakes.
If HMRC's calculations don't add up how you expected, contact your tax office without delay. If your query is not resolved before the payment deadline, pay the bill anyway. You'll get a refund if necessary, but if you don't pay you may face a charge and interest.
Tax offices review taxpayers' records in January or February each year to decide whether to send a return in April. If you want to leave the self assessment system and your tax circumstances have changed sufficiently enough to allow this, send in your tax return (or notify your tax office) early so that the information can be logged before the review. You should receive a letter from your tax office if you no longer need to complete a return.
HMRC will not accept the following as an excuse for late returns: pressure of work, a failure by your tax adviser, lack of information (send provisional figures) or difficulty with the tax return. An acceptable excuse might be an unforeseen postal strike, loss of your records by fire, flood or theft, or serious illness (if you can show that you'd have otherwise met the deadline).
HMRC doesn't acknowledge receipt of your return, although it'll let you know when the return's been processed.

In case you've filed your return and paperwork and can't be bothered to dig it out, here are some notable dates you'd find buried in it:

If you want HMRC to calculate the tax, the deadline for your return is 30 September.
If you file online, tax is calculated automatically. The deadline is 31 January.
The final deadline for all returns is 31 January, but you have to calculate the tax yourself.

Remember that, if you're sending a return online, it can take up to seven days to set up an Internet account, so leave plenty of time.

> Make more money! Compare savings accounts and switch to a high-interest deal.

> Save some money! Compare insurance quotes for a range of insurances.