It’s time to start thinking about tax again. The first self-assessment date – which allows you to send in a paper form and have HM Revenue & Customs calculate the tax you owe – has been shifted to 31 October, but if you have a lot of papers to get together, the sooner you start the better. So what do you need? First, employees should ensure that they have a copy of their P60 for the last fiscal year, which ended on 5 April. This summarises your total earnings and any tax deducted. You’ll also need a summary from your payroll department – called a P11D – of any payroll-related benefits and expenses, perhaps private medical cover or interest-free loans, provided by your employer. These must be entered and are taxable, too.
Next, your savings income. Any interest you receive from bank or building society accounts will normally have been taxed at 20%, so this isn’t much of an issue for lower-rate payers. Higher-rate taxpayers, however, must make sure they have received an annual interest certificate for each account from the relevant provider and must then declare the gross amount received so that the remaining 20% due can be collected. If you received dividends from companies between 6 April 2007 and 5 April 2008, these should also be declared. The same goes for any capital gains on investments sold – that’s everything from art to buy-to-let flats. Next is your pension: if you make contributions to a personal pension plan you should get any tax you paid on the income in the first place back, but you’ll only get the full relief by declaring them in the relevant section of the tax return. That’s one not to forget.
And if you don’t get it all done in time, don’t panic. If you are filing online and happy to write a cheque for any tax due, or you are happy to work out your own paper-based tax liability with, or without, the help of an accountant, the deadline moves out to 31 January 2009.