Waiting for a paper tax return to arrive?……. It’s not coming!
Up until now, you could choose to submit a paper tax return by 31 st October each year or submit online by 31 st January, the following year.
With HMRC gearing up with ‘Making Tax Digital’, their next stage here is to move all to submitting your tax returns online.
On this basis, as from 2019/20, HMRC are no longer automatically sending paper returns to be completed.
Although this was announced in March 2020, with the current situation, many are still unaware.
Last year, HMRC automatically sent out around half a million returns. As 94% of all returns were submitted online last year, the aim is to encourage people to take advantage of the online service and cut unnecessary use of paper.
Therefore, around 500,000 of you will now be receiving a ‘short notice to file.’
There will be between 1% to 3% of those that due to personal circumstances, cannot file online and therefore will either be identified by HMRC in advance or you can still download a paper return to complete.
But…. The idea is to get us all online, if practicable.
What’s holding you back from submitting online?
Submitting a return online is not as scary as it looks as long as you have all the information required to hand. Filing online also gives you an extra 3 months to file, although, I would not recommend leaving till the last minute.
Why not use this time in lockdown to ‘go digital?’
In short, you will receive a ‘notice to file’. This means that you are already registered for self-assessment, just maybe not enrolled as yet to submit online.
To enrol in order to file online, go to GOV.UK and create a new online account using your UTR. Youwill receive an activation code, sign in, enter the code and you’re ready to go!
This could take up to 10 working days, (probably longer due to the current lockdown), therefore do this as soon as possible and not leave till January 2021!)
To make it easier… here’s the link:
https://www.gov.uk/log-in-file-self-assessment-tax-return/register-if-youre-not-self-employed