Self-assessment - befuddled and worried

kunekune

I think I posted my worries in the wrong place, so I thought I'd try again.

Most of my income is through full-time employment, and so it is taxed at source. However, I earn an additional £3000 or so through freelance assignments. Obviously, I need - and want - to pay tax on this.

A year ago, I started the whole process of registering to do self-assessment online. I did not have a UTR, because I had never had any correspondence with the tax office. I did not realise this was a problem, and by the time I did it was very close to the deadline. I got all the preliminary steps done, but when I tried to log in, it was a complete failure. I can't remember exactly what happened, but the PIN and the password didn't work together.

At that point (I'm not used to UK tax years) I had another look at my documents and realised that I had not received any freelance income in that tax year anyway (I had delayed an invoice, so didn't get the money until April) and stopped panicking.

Fast forward to October. In October, I was going to do a paper return, having lost faith in the online system. But I had flu, then got diagnosed with various other things, and both October and November kind of slipped away. I had it in my mind that I could do my own calculation, and then send in a cheque in January.

Oops. It looks like I was wrong. And now it is 15 Jan, and time is running out. I have hunted and hunted for last year's documents, but can't find them - we moved house in between. So I have no record of my UTR, and have registered but never activated the online service.

Simple question: if I do a calculation (all the extra income was at the top tax rate) and send a paper form and a cheque, will they penalise me? I was thinking of sending a little more than I had calculated, just in case. Or is there some complication I'm not getting, like having to pay extra NI or something, and so it isn't possible to work out?

I hope someone can help - obviously I'll phone the inland revenue at some point, but I really can't see me managing the online process by the deadline given all the missing stuff.

fengirl_2

If you pay your tax by 31 Jan, you cannot be fined, even if you havn't submitted your self assessment by that date.
If you want to post your total income and tax paid here, someone will calculate the tax for you, or else PM me.

kunekune

Thank you - that is reassuring.

One step forward too: I have located my user ID for the Government Gateway. And a UTR. The study now looks like we've been burgled (actually, it did anyway, but the second burglars were worse than the first). I will now try and activate. But I'll also take up the calculation offer, as a back up. I'll have to pull out the bits of paper first, though (I have my P60, and a note of the extra income, but it's not been addedup yet).

Pennywise

kunekune wrote: »

At that point (I'm not used to UK tax years) I had another look at my documents and realised that I had not received any freelance income in that tax year anyway (I had delayed an invoice, so didn't get the money until April) and stopped panicking.

Oh dear! It's not invoice date nor payment date that matters, it is the date the work was done. So if you did the work before 5/4/08, it should have been declared on the 07/08 tax return due for submission and payment by the end of January 2009, regardless of what date you raised your invoice and got paid. You may have a bigger problem that you realised!

kunekune

I have now requested a new activation code. There was a number scribbled on a piece of paper that turned out to be a password (well, I got into pages with my name on it, and I doubt I could have done that just with my user ID and NI number, so I assume that it was!!!! If it wasn't, I will run into a problem when the activation code arrives.

A slight worry is that we've moved house, and I doubt the new address is with inland revenue. But we have mail redirection, so it shouldn't be a problem.

I'm