“The dog ate my tax return”

It’s 10 minutes to midnight on the evening of 31st January and our very last client logs into our portal and clicks to approve their tax return. Obviously, all the staff are asleep and this one misses the deadline.

Despite that, we’re delighted to have had another successful tax return season here at Ellis & Co helping (almost) all of our clients get their tax returns in on time. We know that tax isn’t everyone’s favourite thing to do which is why we take the hassle out of the process. In January, this support morphs into lots of reminders, surreptitiously extracting the information piece by piece, almost with the client noticing sometimes, the odd road trip to pick up some papers that turned up from under the sofa, and moreover, an awful lot of sympathising when we hear the unfortunate sequence of events that led to the information being brought in at lunchtime on the 31st. Some people are just unlucky I guess, year after year.

All of this is part of the fun of January. We take pride in supporting our clients through the tax return process starting from the moment the tax year ends right up to the filing date.

As part of our service to you, you can expect us to let you know when a tax year has just finished and present you with a list of what we need from you, followed by periodic timely reminders for the information as the year progresses. We then prepare and submit your tax return and let you know exactly what you need to pay, by when, and how, and be on hand to immediately respond to any queries you may have. We aim to take the stress out of the tax return process and along the way we always keep our eye out for things that can be done to make your financial affairs more tax efficient.

Additionally, we’re always available to answer your more complex questions about tax, or just to have a chat about the tax implications of an idea that you’re thinking about.

We welcomed many new clients to us for the 2022/23 tax cycle, whom we are looking forward to assisting in the years ahead. For our newer client, we notice common areas of tax inefficiencies:

• Inefficient remuneration extraction of company profits

• Not using spouse’s lower tax bands for dividends/savings/investment income

• Not using part of spouse’s personal allowance

• Not making use of the tax efficiency of pension contributions, or not making a claim for the tax relief if you are a higher-rate taxpayer

• Not aware of the 60-day capital gains tax reporting thereby missing a capital gains return

• Not claiming all possible costs against rental income

• Unaware of Pension contribution Annual Allowance and the tax problems that can arise

• National Insurance/state pension accrual issues

We take an all-round approach and pick up on these issues with you to minimise your tax.

For this tax year, 2023/24, we will see some major changes for the self-employed. In the 2023/24 tax return cycle we will be faced with the introduction of the basis period reform which will have a significant impact on many sole traders. We will also see a general reduction to the tax-free allowances for dividends and a reduction to the capital gains annual exemption. With these adverse changes, it is important to plan your tax affairs effectively.

According to HMRC’s statistics, 1.1 million taxpayers didn’t hit the 31st January filing deadline. We already know who one of those individuals is, but if you’re part of the other 1 million and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine then get in touch.

Ellis & Co-Director John Farrell said “It’s been another successful tax season for Melanie our Tax Manager (pictured) and the team at Ellis & Co and they have worked so hard to achieve the deadline for our clients. As mentioned, there was a bit of chasing to do but that is part of the process, plus we were able to pick up new clients along the way who required a tax return.

We now look to carry on the momentum at Ellis & Co and continue to provide a first-class service across audit, accounts and tax. If any of our members wish to speak to Melanie, please give the office a call on 01244 343504.”