Owe Less than £3000 Tax for 2011/2012

pennypincher3562

Hi

As a 'newbie' sole trader, I made less than £3000 profit for the tax year 2011/2012.

I'm just reading through HMRC correspondence and it states:

'If you owe less than £3000 tax for 2011-2012, we will try to collect it through your 2013-2014 PAYE tax code if you have one. If you don't want us to this, you must file online by 30 December 2012.'

I fit into the above category (less than £3000 tax to pay.) Are there any reasons why I would not want the tax collected through my 2013-2014 PAYE tax code? If I did pay through the 2013-2014 PAYE code, would my full time employer be able to discover that I'm doing extra work in my spare time?

Ideally, I would like to go for the January 31st deadline, if there are no downsides to using the 2013-2014 PAYE code.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

PennyPincher3562

notanewuser

pennypincher3562 wrote: »

Hi

As a 'newbie' sole trader, I made less than £3000 profit for the tax year 2011/2012.

I'm just reading through HMRC correspondence and it states:

'If you owe less than £3000 tax for 2011-2012, we will try to collect it through your 2013-2014 PAYE tax code if you have one. If you don't want us to this, you must file online by 30 December 2012.'

I fit into the above category (less than £3000 tax to pay.) Are there any reasons why I would not want the tax collected through my 2013-2014 PAYE tax code? If I did pay through the 2013-2014 PAYE code, would my full time employer be able to discover that I'm doing extra work in my spare time?

Ideally, I would like to go for the January 31st deadline, if there are no downsides to using the 2013-2014 PAYE code.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

PennyPincher3562

Your tax code would reduce, which could alert your employer that something is going on. Why don't you want them to know about your self employment?

System

The instructions sent to your employer only tell them the code to use, not how it's made up. If that's any help.

As for downsides, in most cases there aren't any unless you expect changes in your PAYE income. There's no interest charges or anything like that if you pay through PAYE and you have longer to pay. It's sort of an incentive to file early. I haven't seen this years deadlines but I think you normally have to file your return by 30 December in order to take advantage of the pay through PAYE option.

pennypincher3562

Thanka for both responses. In answer to notanewuser, it's a contractual issue.

Cheers
Pennypincher3562