There are some very important dates that need to be added to your calendar for example:
- The deadline for Limited Companies to submit their Corporation tax payment is December 31st 2015
- The impending self-assessment deadline for submission and payment for sole traders is January 31st 2016.
For the majority of people visiting this site you will most likely be a sole trader and have a simple version of the self assessment to return. If you rent property then you will have an additional section to complete as part of your self assessment.
On the whole it should be easy enough to work out your allowances and therefore your profit/loss for the year as long as you have gathered together all of your:
- amounts for sales and purchases
- details on any disposals of assets such as selling a van or laptop
- amount of stock you have including an amount for stationary
- and lastly any loan agreements you may have taken out in the last financial year
Then its just a case of transferring that information on to your tax return, sounds simple and sometimes it is, but often there is an element that makes the accurate calculation not so straight forward, such as accounting for VAT for registered business’s who in turn may not have kept good records which makes their return easy to calculate.
Each business is different and one thing I have noticed in my work, is that everybody has a different way of keeping their records, it may be that they have just developed their own system which works for them; others have inherited their ‘Dad’s’ way of keeping the accounts in a small book and envelope, kept in a drawer. Its not to say that these systems are incorrect, far from it, if it works for you then it’s right, but you must be able to understand what you have recorded and be able to accurately say what your tax liability is.
In all, we all have to pay into our society to keep it functioning, and taxation has always been seen as being a fairer way of doing that, but if everyone decided to cheat the system with loop-holes, well the system would fail.
I am all up for paying my fair share of taxes, I just want to pay the right amount of tax, not too much or too little just the correct amount that I am due to pay. I’m sure I am not the only one who feels this way.