Self Assessment

[TOSH1]

Hi

My accountant wants to charge £125.00 to complete a self assessment tax returmn. How complicated is this to complete yourself?

Regards

TOSH1

[SueEllen]

If your income is just:
1. salary
2. dividends

Then apparently it's not. (I was given instructions to do one once by an accountant but never needed to submit my own.)

If you have a rental and other sources of income get the pocket calculator out, and be prepared to scratch your head.

[TOSH1]

Mine is just salary and dividends.

[Contreras]

I find most of the effort is in collecting together the info needed* and you would need to do that even if your accountant completes the SA.

What you can do is download and print out the PDF form(s) and have a go at filling it in.

Accountant can help if you have stuff that doesn't fit nicely with HMRC's format, but otherwise by doing it on paper you have just collected together the details needed to do it online.

* like tax certificates from savings accounts or share dealing accounts, payslips/P60 from ex-permie role and other income, etc.

[kingcook]

My accountant wants to charge £125.00 to complete a self assessment tax returmn. How complicated is this to complete yourself?

Get yourself a government gateway ID (or whatever it's called these days) so that you can complete SA online.

Go through it all (you can check through it all before doing a final submit). If you find yourself getting stuck might be best to pass it onto the accountant.

I've always done it myself. It's quite easy, except understanding some wordings on some of the questions (mainly around expenses and benefits for me).

[Nathan SJD Accountancy]

Just to add, I have done an SA online using HMRC's site and I wouldn't recommend using it.

Their site makes it so much longer than it has to be IMO. Even if you will only be putting on salary and dividends.

[Maslins]

What kingcook says.

It's fairly straight forward, but there will be a lot of questions with big words that you can ignore.

Also, don't do the n00b contractor mistake of ticking the box to say you're self employed...you're director/shareholder of a Ltd Co.

[northernladuk]

Why not pay him to do it first year? He sends you all the documentation for review, keep that and then just do it yourself forever after using his documentation as a template. £125 is pretty cheap for peace of mind to know you are doing it correctly for the rest of your contracting career. One mistake could land you with a bill for a lot more than that.

If you do go ahead and do this and get stuck you have no help except for a load of stangers on an internet forum. They don't charge anything but you likely to get an equivalent quality of help you paid for....

[d000hg]

Why not get an accountant who does this without charging extra for it

[Greg@CapitalCity]

How complicated is this to complete yourself?

Its straightforward in my opinion (mind you I have done a few). Don't forget to submit your GROSS dividend + salary income in the service company income box, and if you had a P11D you'll just need to ensure you put the right numbers in the right boxes of the employment pages (using the HMRC online service can be confusing in this respect).