Quarterly tax submissions for self employed

noitsnotme

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81928342#Comment_81928342

I’m not an accountant/bookkeeper. I have a background in IT and managed to pick it up quite quickly when I started my own business. I’m sure you will be fine and will find it easier than you think.

mills112

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81928378#Comment_81928378

thanks. will use the gov website to see what software they suggest, but as you say, it should be easy enough to pick up.

does it ask you to load up receipts and invoices?

i assume it does everything like the self assessment? like savings interest and rental income?

noitsnotme

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81928554#Comment_81928554

does it ask you to load up receipts and invoices?

Most of them should have that capability. All the ones I’ve used do (Sage, QuickBooks, Xero). I doubt it’s mandatory for MTD but it’s good practice.

i assume it does everything like the self assessment? like savings interest and rental income?

That I’m not too sure on and likely to be different for each provider. I currently only use Xero for my limited company. If you’re hitting the MTD threshold for only sole-trader income OR only rental income I thinks it’s a lot simpler. If it’s a mixture of both (sole-trader AND rental) I think it becomes a bit trickier. Freeagent for example seem to say you would need 2 accounts with them. I haven’t looked at any others in detail so far.

mills112

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81929007#Comment_81929007

my friend has self employment income just under 50k but he has rental income at 12k so i am not sure if he needs two software?

do you pay for your Xero software? for the paid ones, is it an annual fee to use them? I assume you can't claim that cost against your income as an expense?

noitsnotme

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81929355#Comment_81929355

my friend has self employment income just under 50k but he has rental income at 12k so i am not sure if he needs two software?

You would need to look at each provider to see what they offer. I, or rather my wife, doesn’t hit the MTD threshold until 2028 for rental income only so it should easier for us. I’ve only just started looking and Freeagent is the only one I’ve looked at in detail as you can get it free with some business bank accounts.

do you pay for your Xero software? for the paid ones, is it an annual fee to use them? I assume you can't claim that cost against your income as an expense?

Yes I pay for Xero, about £60 a month. But that’s for my limited company which has a large number of transactions, multiple currencies, runs payroll and submits VAT returns. I do claim the cost of it as a business expense. I’m sure you could also do that as a sole-trader/landlord, it’s still a business expense.

My accountant does my personal tax return so I don’t use any software for that.

Xero do packages from I think around £7 a month for smaller businesses and landlords. I’ve always found it an excellent piece of software but I don’t know how good they are for the new MTD.

mills112

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81929422#Comment_81929422

i think the rental income is added to self employment income, so if you add those two together, you would fall into MTD as well for rental income but as the rental income is in your wife's name, that is excluded for now until 2028.

my friend received an email from HMRC to tell him about MTD as he falls into that category. Have you registered for MTD already as the email he got said he needs to register for MTD.

noitsnotme

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81929444#Comment_81929444

I currently don’t have any self employment income as my income from the ltd company is PAYE and dividends. I have a small amount of rental income but it’s under even the £20k threshold for 2028.

My wife’s rental income (no self employment income) is just over £20k so she will be in scope from April 2028. We won’t register her for MTD until they tell her to.

mills112

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81929458#Comment_81929458

i see, so the software you are using is also appropriate for MTD, so it isn't new software designed specifically for MTD but have been around already for people like yourself to keep live records. good to know.

does it submit the data to HMRC directly?

noitsnotme

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81929624#Comment_81929624

Xero has been around for years. I think I started using it around 2016 on the advice of my accountant (they and I previously used Sage which wasn't great). I do all my own bookkeeping and VAT returns and then my accountant does my end of year and corporation tax submissions. They have access to my Xero data so I don't have to supply them much more info at end of year.

MTD has been around in some form for ages. Previously it was launched for VAT so I use Xero to submit the quarterly returns directly to HMRC.

I do rate Xero very highly but I don't know how good the lower priced Xero package is for landlords specifically.