Don’t worry. The most important thing to do is speak to HMRC as soon as you can.

Find out if you owe any penalties with our late penalties calculator.

Two ways:

• online or by phone: but only for the £100 late filing penalty.
• print and send the SA370 form via post

In either case, you’ll need to provide a “reasonable excuse”.

You must appeal within 30 days unless you have a serious reason for appealing late.

The documents we require depend on why you need to do a Self Assessment.

If your only reason to file one is because you’ve gone over the £150,000 earnings threshold, and your only source of income is employment (PAYE), then we only need a P60 (sometimes a P45 as well), and any P11D forms you might have received from your employer.

However, if you already have an HMRC Online Services account, we can simply connect to it and simply pull your information from there. And, in case you’re wondering, we’re authorised by HMRC to do this.

For any other reasons to do a Self Assessment, we have a longer list of documents here.

There are many tax-free allowances in the UK:

• everyone in the UK is entitled to £12,500 tax-free income – this is called the Personal Allowance
• if you made any capital gains (sold shares, property, etc.), the first £12,000 is tax-free
• first £2,000 from dividends is also tax-free
• same with the first £5,000 from savings interest (although it can be less – it depends on your tax band)

There are also a few tax-free allowances you can claim instead of expenses:

• you can claim £7,500 if you rent out a room from your own home
• you can also claim £1,000 if you are self-employed or a landlord
• if you earn under these amounts you don’t even need to declare them

You can see a full list of tax-free allowances here

HMRC has over 130 phone lines, but most of them are not relevant for everyday taxpayers.

These are the most important ones:

• For questions about Self Assessment tax returns: 0300 200 3310
• For questions about how much tax you need to pay and what reliefs you can claim: 0300 200 3300
• For questions about National Insurance: 0300 200 3500

You can see all of the HMRC numbers here

Our accountants can give you advice on your tax situation, but they won’t do tax calculations for you on the call. We’d recommend giving our tax calculators a try if you’re looking for an estimate of your bill.

Otherwise, the best way to find out exactly what you’ll owe HMRC is to file your tax return! Don’t forget, you don’t have to pay your bill when you file. Filing just calculates what you owe based on your income and expenses.

No – unless you also need to file a Self Assessment.

You need to file a Self Assessment if:

• your income goes over or under the £50,000 threshold (there are different CGT rates)
• you earn income from self-employment, rent, dividends, or interest
• or you’re looking to claim a tax relief like SEIS/EIS/VCT
• here is a list of all the reasons why you need to do a Self Assessment.

It really depends.

Basically, the Real Time CGT return asks you to estimate how much your income will be for the year. If nothing significant changes and you don’t go over/under £50,000 a year (there are different CGT rates if you earn less or more than this), then you don’t need to do a Self Assessment.

However, if you lose a job or get a significant promotion, you might need to file a Self Assessment as well – by January 31st of the second year.

You will need to register with HMRC in order to do your Self Assessment, where you declare your untaxed income to HMRC. You need do this by 5th October online via HMRC, or we can do it for you for £25.

Once registered, you will be sent what’s known as a Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) number.

If you’re a company director, you’re probably wondering which option is better: paying yourself a salary or dividends.

The best solution is to pay yourself a minimum salary so you qualify for National Insurance credits, and the rest as dividends.

This is because for salary you’ll have to pay both the employee’s (yours) and the employer’s (your own company) NI contributions.

When you pay yourself dividends, you get an additional tax-free dividend allowance (£2,000) plus you’re exempt from additional NI contributions.

Making Tax Digital (MTD) is an HMRC initiative that is meant to replace annual Self Assessment tax returns by requiring you to report your income and expenses quarterly instead of once per year.

For the 2019/2020 tax year, only limited companies and self-employed people earning over £85,000 and who are already registered for VAT have to join the MTD scheme. So, in reality, most people don’t need to worry about it for a while.

Read more about preparing for MTD