Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has issued a reminder to small business owners across Britain over the approaching deadline for paper self assessment tax returns.
‘Get organised now’ was the message from HMRC, which said this year’s deadline for paper returns has been moved forward to October 31.
“In previous years, both paper and online self assessment returns had to be filed by January 31,” said a spokesperson. “From this year, paper returns must be with HMRC by October 31.”
HMRC said the alternative is to switch to online filing, which still has a deadline of January 31.
“Filing online has several advantages – your tax is calculated automatically, you get an immediate online acknowledgement once you’ve filed, and it’s processed faster, so any money you’re owed by HMRC is repaid more quickly,” said the spokesperson.
The earlier deadline comes after a series of gaffes affected the HMRC website, the latest of which was in July, when some taxpayers were showed a figure ‘up to 13 times’ higher than the actual figure owed.
Anita Monteith, technical manager at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, described the glitch as ‘heart-jumping’.
“In the current credit crunch climate, that’s the last type of news anybody would want,” she said.
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2008
