Focus on your service, we’ll sort your taxes

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

Most people in full-time jobs who only have PAYE income never have to bother with tax returns.

The only times when you need to submit a Self Assessment tax return are:

• when your pre-tax income is over £100,000 per year
• when you have other sources of income (usually over £1,000)
• or when you’re claiming a tax rebate (although you should first call HMRC and see if they can give you the refund through your tax code)

If you’re not sure which one applies to you, read our guide to who needs to file a tax return here – it’s a long list

No.

You only pay National Insurance for your:

• employment income and
• self-employment income

For anything else, like dividends, savings interest, foreign income, etc., you don’t need to pay National Insurance, only Income Tax.

Of course, if you wish to qualify for or increase your State Pension, you can always make voluntary National Insurance contributions.

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.

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 £100,000 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 two main things that set us apart. Firstly, for you, the users. We automate all the admin that accountants usually charge for. This saves them time and means we can pass on any cost savings to you. It also means that we can get your tax return filed in as little as 48hrs, from signup to filing, or your tax advice consultation booked in minutes.

If you’re ready to go, we’re ready to help.

For our accountant partners, our platform is built in a way that means you don’t compete with each other. You don’t bid on clients and never lose out on business to other accountants. The clients are yours, and when they return from previous years, they’re assigned automatically to you.

You can claim pretty much everything that you use “for business”:

• a portion of your home
• transport costs
• accountant fees (including ours!)
• laptop, phone, etc.

For most of these things, you need to calculate what proportion you actually use for your self-employed business.

The complete list of self-employed allowances is here.