Avoid the stress and do it now

​Cast your mind back to January, were you one of the many people who were worried, stressed and even anxious about filling in your online assessment? Did you leave it to the last minute? Did you discover a large bill to pay? And then worry about where the funds would come from to pay that bill?
 
You can change that for this year, you don’t have to go through that in January, instead you can choose to do your self assessment now.
 
One huge benefit of doing your self assessment right now, especially if you left it until January and especially if you had a very large bill to pay is you won’t have to pay the tax bill straight away.  The tax bill will still be due to be paid in January but you can find out how much you owe and then you can save your money and you can pay it off when you are ready instead of being pushed into a corner and having to find that money immediately.
 
If you are not ready to jump straight in to your online assessment I suggest you start finding your receipts, if they are in a box somewhere then that’s great because you’ve got them! But if they’re not and if you can’t find them then that’s more of a problem.  But gather up all of the receipts you can find, find your bank statements and update your spreadsheet or accounts system and put together all the information you need so you can do your self assessment.
 
If you’re not currently using a computer and you have a manual system now is a really good time to think about changing because the government, you may have heard, are talking about making tax digital and although the plans have been delayed recently, ultimately, I think this is something that will come in and it would serve us all to be prepared for this before it happens.  The idea of making tax digital is that HMRC want their money a bit sooner, so what they want is for businesses to start doing self assessment quarterly instead of annually which could be a really big headache for some small businesses, but it doesn’t have to be.
 
We don’t know the details yet, we don’t know how the system will work or how complex it will be but if you get in the habit now of compiling your accounts every single month, so at the end of every month you get your receipts and put them on your spreadsheet or on your accounts systems then when they do bring in this digital tax system you will be ready to embrace it.
 
I will keep you updated with new information as it is published, but don’t wait until new system arrives and then start panicking and making changes to your current working systems make those changes now, it will benefit you in the long run.
 
So think about those changes, and if you need help with any of that give me a call and I will help you set up a new system, I will help you sort through your receipts, input information if that’s what you need and get ready so your bookkeeping and your business runs more smoothly than it does right now.