January already! Well, didn’t Christmas just fly by in a heady daze of socials and locals and too much time with friends, family and a box of Quality Street? To be honest, we’re quite glad to be back in the office and the regular cut and thrust of high paced office life here at UCHQ, although we’re not sure we can say the same for our dear intern, who seems to be spending her days clock watching even more frequently than usual.
But after far too much cheese and chocolate, we’re counting the cost of those extra pounds here at UCHQ, and with it comes the prospect of extra pounds of another kind.
Yes, for those of you who are self-employed and run your business as a sole trader, or who earn their dosh in less conventional ways, it’s time to think about filing in your Self-Assessment tax return, if you haven’t already, as the January 31stdeadline for online returns will soon be upon us.
Make sure if you aren’t already that you’re up to speed with allowable expenses – HMRC has recently made these far easier for people to claim a flat fee for some of these – say, if for example, you drive business miles to meetings (not to your place of work), or work from home, rather than messing about calculating fractions of percentages of your heating costs and home insurance, you can simply claim a fixed cost back from them.
They’ve also updated the user interface for filing your return, which certainly makes for a more pleasant experience than in previous years, and even have some handy videos available to show you more information on any questions you may have when it comes to filling in your return.
To make it even easier for you, we too have our own free to download guide on ‘Ten Ways to Save Tax When Going Freelance’’ – simply put your email address in the box below and we’ll send it straight over. (We can promise you that the intern had no hand in creating it, so it is actually useful).
One other thing you can claim for is accounting fees. So, if you use one of our Umbrella Companies, whose work will have made completing your return something akin to an absolute doddle, you can effectively claim their charges back – sweet! Not only that, but you can be confident that they will have already ensured you’re claiming back what you are due and your company returns are in ship-shape condition.
…. Leaving you more time to get down to the gym and start doing something about those extra pounds…
