Those taxpayers who still chose to submit paper-based self-assessment tax returns for the tax year ended 5 April 2011 will have needed to have done so by 31 October. For those who submit their tax returns on-line the deadline in 31 January.
HMRC has a new penalty regime for late returns ...

Some employers have been caught out by HMRC introducing penalties from 1 April 2010 for late payment of PAYE and NIC. Although HMRC insists that the introduction of the automatic penalty regime was well publicised it did not send out any notices warning employers that they had paid late during the ...

It’s not just the mega-rich and tax exiles which HMRC is targeting for underpayment of tax. Many trades and professions are in their sights. Plumbers, doctors and dentists are amongst those targeted so far.
Now HMRC has turned its sights on private tutors and coaches. The Tax Catch-Up P ...

A recent investigation by Parliament has uncovered an ongoing catalogue of poor service by the taxman. Following on from a long list of errors by HMRC which have meant many taxpayers receiving excessive demands for tax, the report has found:
- people waiting up to three months for a repl ...

One-in-ten of Britain’s 4.7 million small business owners have admitted missing key tax deadlines and payments, while almost one-in-five have lost out on tax breaks and grants.
These disturbing figures are from a recent survey by Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks which also included data s ...

Anyone who doesn’t submit their tax return on time for 2010/11 will be fined up to £1,600 and possibly even more! And you won’t be let off the fine if you have no tax to pay.
Fed up of hundreds of thousands of people filing their tax returns late every year, the taxman has deci ...

Are you a plumber, heating engineer or work in a similar trade? If so then you should be aware that the taxman is targeting your profession for evidence of underpaid taxes.
But under the Plumber’s Tax Safe Plan (PTSF) then if you declare any unpaid taxes from the past five years before ...

Were you one of many people or businesses scrambling to get your 2009/10 tax return completed in time for the filing deadline on 31 January 2011? If you were, then I hope you came to Pemberley Accounting, which worked tirelessly on behalf of its clients to help any who came along with last-minute ...

HMRC is planning a major review of the accounts of small and medium-sized companies in order to look for unpaid tax. Under new legislation enacted through the Finance Act, the taxman will be able to scrutinise up to 50,000 sets of accounts in 2011.
Under the Act, the taxman will have the po ...

In all the hurly-burly of getting ready for Christmas it's easy to forget that the deadline for filing income tax returns for the year ended 5 April 2010 is only a few weeks away. If you don't submit your tax return by 31 January 2011 then HMRC will issue automatic late-filing fines while further ...

2010 was a bad year for HMRC as it realised it had made thousands, probably millions, of errors in assessing the tax due by hard-working taxpayers who thought they had paid the correct tax. After initially threatening to collect every penny, the taxman has acknowledged that many small amounts will ...

Company directors could face hefty fines if their accounts are rejected by Companies House due to errors. In the first six months of 2010, more than 90,000 sets of accounts were rejected - with almost one third of these due to filing incorrect statutory financial statements.
Some of ...

A report by the National Audit Office states that HMRC still has a backlog of 18.2million income tax cases where there is potentially underpaid or overpaid tax. This means taxpayers may have paid £3bn more than they should have.
HMRC blamed the backlog on the effects of the recession which ...

VAT
The headline rate of VAT will be increased to 20% from 4 January 2011. There will be no change to zero-rated and exempt items such as food, children's clothing and books.
Capital Gains Tax
The headline rate of Capital Gains Tax rise ...

According to the Society of Professional Accountants, which represents around 1,400 small accounting firms, as many as one in five tax coding notices dated from earlier this year could be wrong. Tax payers may only notice the mistake when they find that their April pay is less than they expected ...

According to recent research Britons are paying billions of pounds too much tax in 2010, with the average taxpayer paying almost £200 too much.
The main reasons for this overpayment are:
errors in self-assessment tax returns and penalties due to late submission; failure to use a ...

Taxpayers must send cheque payments to HMRC earlier from April or else pay on-line in order to avoid penalties.
From 1 April 2010, the taxman will not treat payments by cheque as received until the day the cheque clears, rather than when the cheque arrives in the post.
So if you a ...

HMRC has just completed sending out PAYE tax codes for 2010/11 to over 25 million taxpayers. But the Chartered Institute of Taxation has claimed that many of them are wrong and could result in taxpayers having too much tax deducted from their monthly pay packet when the new codes take effect in ...

HMRC continues to target key people whom it considers likely to have underpaid tax in the past. First was the well-publicised amnesty for overseas income. Taxpayers were offered the chance to declare and pay tax on under-reported overseas income and escape serious penalties. Now HMRC has ...

Banks and buliding societies are required by law to deduct 20% tax on savings interest before it is paid. Pensioners who are non-taxpayers, or who qualify for the 10% savings rate, could be losing out if they don't act to reclaim the tax paid.
Pensioners who have overpaid tax on inter ...

Recent reports throughout the printed press, TV, radio and on-line media have identified that many older people may be over-paying tax because they have not claimed all the allowances to which they are entitled.
Amysas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said "Older people want to p ...