Self assessment confusion.

Bubbles_1983

I started freelance work in August 2022 and I submitted my first self assessment in April 2023. I have been looking online and I believe I should have skipped the first year and submitted my first assessment in 2024. I am really confused and cannot afford to pay for someone to do this for me. I am trying to learn more and ensure I get this right, but I had a lot of difficulty submitting this year's self assessment. 

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Bubbles_1983 said:

I started freelance work in August 2022 and I submitted my first self assessment in April 2023. I have been looking online and I believe I should have skipped the first year and submitted my first assessment in 2024. I am really confused and cannot afford to pay for someone to do this for me. I am trying to learn more and ensure I get this right, but I had a lot of difficulty submitting this year's self assessment. 

Why do you think that?

The normal period a Self Assessment for 2022-23 could be submitted was 6 April 2023 to 31 January 2024.  After that it would usually have been late (assuming you had been sent a notice to file a return).

Nothing wrong with filing early, better than a last minute panic.

DullGreyGuy

Bubbles_1983 said:

I started freelance work in August 2022 and I submitted my first self assessment in April 2023. I have been looking online and I believe I should have skipped the first year and submitted my first assessment in 2024. I am really confused and cannot afford to pay for someone to do this for me. I am trying to learn more and ensure I get this right, but I had a lot of difficulty submitting this year's self assessment. 

If you started in August 2022 then you needed to submit your self assessment no later than the end of January 2024 which would have covered the period of August 2022 to 5 April 2023. 

"No Later" obviously means you can submit it earlier if you want to though naturally you cannot submit until 6 April because it has to be done after the year has closed. Its often easier to do it later because banks dont produce their annual interest statements etc on the 6 April but typically a few weeks later but you can add it up yourself rather than await their statements.