A quick reminder about tax deadlines for individuals and partnerships.
Self Employed and Partners
You must register with HMRC within 3 months of the end of the month during which you started trading. For instance, if you start to trade on 13th August 2013 then you have until 30th November 2013 to inform HMRC. If you fail to do so then you will incur an automatic penalty of £100. If you are in a partnership then this applies to each partner, but additionally, the partnership itself will incur a penalty equivalent to £100 for each partner involved in the business.
Accounts do not need to be produced for any specific period. However, you will be required to submit a self-assessment tax return for the year during which you started trading and for each tax year thereafter. Additionally, a partnership will need to submit a partnership self-assessment tax return for each of these periods. These returns must be submitted by 31st October following the end of the tax year if they are submitted on paper, or 31st January if submitted electronically.
For instance, self-assessment returns for 2013, ie the year ending on 5th April 2013, need to be submitted by 31st October 2013 if submitted on paper, or 31st January 2014 if submitted electronically. Late returns incur an immediate penalty of £100 followed by penalties of £90 per day if the failure continues for 3 months.
Other individuals Subject to Self Assessment
There are other reasons for needing to register for self-assessment. These include receipt of other untaxed income, such as rental income, or allowable expenses incurred as a result of your employment in excess of £2,500. A full list of reasons is available on HMRC’s website. In these circumstances, you must register for self-assessment by 31st October following the tax year when the requirement to register arose.
Payment of Tax
Any tax due on the returns, less any payments on account already made, needs to be paid by 31st January following the end of the tax year. Additionally, if the total liability is more that £1,000 then you will need to make a payment on account of the following year equivalent to 50% of the total liability. A further payment on account of the same amount is paid on the following 31st July.
For instance, assume that you have the following tax liabilities:
- Year to 5th April 2012 £800
- Year to 5th April 2013 £2,000
- Year to 5th April 2014 £3,500
- Year to 5th April 2015 £3,000
Payments of tax will be due as follows:
- 31st January 2013 £800
- 31st January 2014 £3,000
- 31st July 2014 £1,000
- 31st January 2015 £3,250
- 31st July 2015 £1,750
- 31st January 2016 £1,000
- 31st July 2016 £1,500
From the above you can see that fluctuations in profits can lead to much greater fluctuations in the January liabilities. It is, therefore, always important to be aware of this, and as a firm we always try to give clients as much advance warning as possible of when tax will become payable and how much that will be.
We will cover deadlines for companies and other taxes in future articles.