Anybody still doing returns?

Anybody still doing returns?

Didn't find your answer?

I've got 2 to go. One is a trader who has 'lost' all the records. This one doesn't appear to have a care in the world! Anyone else still plodding on?

Replies (52)

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By carnmores
31st Jan 2015 12:32

oh Yes Churchill

5

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By Paul D Utherone
31st Jan 2015 12:33

No

Just waiting for 2 replies so I can push the button & submit.

First w/e I haven't been working stupid hour since Christmas

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Replying to Tax Dragon:
By Paul D Utherone
01st Feb 2015 22:24

...and after all that

Paul D Utherone wrote:

Just waiting for 2 replies so I can push the button & submit.

First w/e I haven't been working stupid hour since Christmas

they never came despite a second reminder on Saturday. Waiting for the grief tomorrow.
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By ShirleyM
31st Jan 2015 12:34

Nope. The last one went at 5pm yesterday.

Although, we still have one waiting for approval. The guy came to us very late in January and is now working away and we are not able to contact him. It will get submitted late.

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By mikeyban
31st Jan 2015 13:08

Did one this morning and that should be it. Awaiting penalty letters to confirm those who I thought would get one don't include anybody I've missed (never happened to date but always a first I guess)!

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By dropoutguy
31st Jan 2015 13:33

My own!

*cough

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By qhas
31st Jan 2015 13:37

Lodging
Lodge a provisional and amended later and thus avoid the late filing penalty

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By Crouchy
31st Jan 2015 13:55

Just Finished

 did have a new case this morning, after a client asked if we could file a return for his son, luckily it was a back of an envelope job

 

pub now :)

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Jennifer Adams
By Jennifer Adams
31st Jan 2015 15:12

Last one done!

I'm tired and exhausted. I promised myself last year that I wouldnt bust a gut as they say but every year...

I'm off for a cup of tea (make that a whisky!) and to demolish a box of chocolates given to me by a grateful client.

By the time I write something about this years experience for my blog on Monday I hope to have calmed down.

Its a pity but despite all my nagging one has not been submitted. I rang, texted, left voicemail = nothing.

Everyone have a good remainder of the weekend - see you on Monday.

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By andy.partridge
31st Jan 2015 15:39

Smug
Finished yesterday at 18.30.

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By cisono
31st Jan 2015 16:14

Should I resubmit self assessment before the deadline?

[Posted as comment to old post but need reply today please!!!]

I submitted my tax return (self-employed, sole trader) last night. I used cash-basis accounting, since I can :-)

This morning, I received in the post "duplicate" credit card statements from April-June 2013 ie start of the period in question (I had switched cards and forgot about these transactions and were not available online). These statements highlight nearly £900 in allowable expenses which I had MISSED in my calculations.

Should I resubmit today with the new information? Would this increase risk of investigations if I submit today (ie before deadline)?

- As things stand now, I am due a small tax refund (tax paid on interest)

- If I add the info here, and resubmit, I will still be due the same small tax refund

Should I resubmit or would this be considered "poor record keeping" and/or attract attention?

(in my defence, I am fighting a bug)

Thank you!

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By andy.partridge
31st Jan 2015 16:28

Considered poor record keeping?
It's obviously shockingly poor record keeping.

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Replying to lionofludesch:
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By cisono
31st Jan 2015 17:26

@andy.partridge - Not very helpful comment there

It is easy to be sarchastic at the expense of others.

I am not an accountant and this year it has been tough being ill all through my tax return checks.

Anyway, next year's return will be perfect. You will be pleased to know that I have already done half of it ...

 

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Basset Hound
By Cuchulainn
31st Jan 2015 16:44

One client to go, then our own....

then down to the pub :-)

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James Reeves
By James Reeves
31st Jan 2015 17:02

@cisono

Have a rest, recover from your bug, then file an amended return later. Don't rush to do it when you are ill if you have already filed before the deadline. You have a year to file the amendment.

It's a very small error in the scheme of things and nobody is going to take much notice, assuming the rest of the return is correct.

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Replying to mushroom_dept:
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By cisono
31st Jan 2015 17:22

James Reeves - I am unsure...

Thank you for your helpful reply.

I just thought that resubmitting today can be done the same way as the first one (online) and the taxman would just use the latest version anyway? (without any negative consequences)

If I resubmit later (after the deadline), I am not sure it can be done online, and in any case, that would seem to me to be worse?

At least, that is what an online article by the Telegraph had me believe.

EDIT: After Marion's comment though, I think I will leave it. Thank you for taking the time to respond.

 

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Replying to Paul Morgan:
James Reeves
By James Reeves
31st Jan 2015 20:33

Amendment

cisono wrote:

If I resubmit later (after the deadline), I am not sure it can be done online, and in any case, that would seem to me to be worse?

You should be able to submit amendments online until Jan 2016. It is not at all uncommon to do so, but you are right that in this case it's probably not worth the bother!

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By Marion Hayes
31st Jan 2015 17:09

@cisono

If I read your post right there is no benefit in filing an amendment anyway if it will not affect the outcome.

Whilst you can be penalised for over-claiming expenses there is no system for under-claiming.

I would do nothing!!

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Replying to Ramcri:
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By cisono
31st Jan 2015 17:19

Thank you Marion Hayes :-)

Thank you so much Marion Hayes.

[That is correct, no change if I filled an amendment]

I am very grateful for your help. I was close to pulling my hair out.

Blessings to you.

 

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By Mrs Incredible
31st Jan 2015 17:15

Zippetty doo dah day

Just pressed the button on the last one - hooray -  and I am completely done in.  Same miscreants this year as last.

Now off for nice glass of wine and bar of chocolate.  I have been promised a takeaway meal of my choice for the whole family by a grateful client so may go and consider the menus.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend....

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Sarah Douglas - HouseTree Business Ltd
By sarah douglas
31st Jan 2015 17:35

my own

It it is not tax returns this year it is the banks looking for management accounts to end of Dec 2014.  We have had loads this January 2015. Great for us Financially but we had not schedule this work in.  The banks are a licence to themselves. 

I need sleep.  I will take next week off with the school midterm and have some chill out time on my bike with the Family.  However I will have a nice glass of wine when I am done. 

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Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
31st Jan 2015 18:03

Why still do them?

This is the first year in ages that I've still had 4-5 to do in the last week of Jan but this year it's been my fault being preoccupied with non-work stuff and a week's holiday earlier this month.

It has reminded me how I too used to have the frustration and exhaustion mentioned above but eventually you just say "enough", why on earth put yourself through it?  If despite nagging, calls, emails, threats of knee-capping the client can't be bothered then they shouldn't be clients.

So this year sort out the proper clients from the rest by telling them that the info must be with you by 5 July, sending them reminders at the end of April & May.  3 months is more than enough time.  

As I've said before, every year we have done this 70-80% of clients comply without a whimper, and most of the others contact us to ask for a week or two extra time.

Happy recovery

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Image is of a pin up style woman in a red dress with some of her skirt caught in the filing cabinet. She looks surprised.
By Monsoon
31st Jan 2015 18:15

This has been the most hectic January for me since 2011. That's simply because I've been on maternity leave and things got a bit behind. It's all done, though, bar one I need to file (after tea) and one who just hasn't come back to us. Working 5 days a week has been a bit of a culture shock after last year!

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Replying to johnjenkins:
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By ver1tate
01st Feb 2015 00:21

Hectic

I feel that after years of licking clients into shape to get their records to my firm on time, they are especially lax this year. Perhaps the hangover from the referendum followed by campaigning for the next election.

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By dropoutguy
31st Jan 2015 20:05

Just filed my own a few minutes ago.

This has been the most pressurised January for me since I was ill in January ten years ago.  Coped well though.

If I wasn't such a control freak I'd allow the firm that I consult for to takeover and deal with my small amount of compliance work, freeing me up to do virtually all planning and enquiry stuff. Why am I such a [***]?

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Man of Kent
By Kent accountant
31st Jan 2015 20:09

Tax returns done and I've moved on...

...just pushing the button on a few RTI submissions now.

Better than watching the carp that's on TV.

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Replying to The Dullard:
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By SKCOX
31st Jan 2015 21:38

Are you sure that's not your fish tank? ;-)

Kent accountant wrote:

...just pushing the button on a few RTI submissions now.

Better than watching the carp that's on TV.

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Replying to The Dullard:
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By SKCOX
31st Jan 2015 21:38

Are you sure that's not your fish tank? ;-)

Kent accountant wrote:

...just pushing the button on a few RTI submissions now.

Better than watching the carp that's on TV.

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By petersaxton
31st Jan 2015 22:53

Finished!

I had six tax returns to submit and I was feeling very tired after working all day, meeting a couple of clients and suffering a lot of stress.

I went to bed at 8 pm and fell asleep. My wife woke me up at 10 pm and I submitted the outstanding tax returns.

I'm going back to bed now.

At 10 o'clock Sunday a client will visit who says he doesn't understand Clear Books. I ask him what are his specific problems and he says "everything"!. He wants me to do the bookkeeping for him but he he says he needs to save money. I say he'll spend a lot more money if I do the work and he'll just have to do as much work giving me the information so I can do the work. I tell him that the whole point of online bookkeeping is so that clients do what they can do and know about and the accountant can do the rest. He downloads bank transactions for the same period multiple times and he doesn't seem to realise. He setup a second bank account in Clear Books (he only has one bank account) but didn't realise and then said he didn't know how to correct the entries so I had to do the corrections. It didn't take me long to do the corrections but how difficult is it to change a field from one bank account to the other? I think the problem is a lack of discipline and he's too lazy.

 

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By DexterDog
01st Feb 2015 00:12

Midnight plus 1 minute

Submitted more than 20 returns in the last hour between 11pm and midnight - last one timed at 00:01 1st Feb!!!  Think I'll get away with it?

 

 

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By ver1tate
01st Feb 2015 00:16

Returns

2 missed the deadline. Their own stupid faults. All clients have been advised that surcharges will apply for late supply of records, and as filing is completed in order of receipt of records, there is no guarantee of their particular return being made in time. We can only hope that HMRC will regard 12 09 as being on time.

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By penelope pitstop
01st Feb 2015 01:54

Irritating clients AAAAAAAAAARGH ! (Shoot me please)

A new client asked me in May 2014 if I could deal with his tax. I immediately sent him an email with lots of questions. He never answered them. Early Jan 2015 I emailed him saying he obviously did not want my services so please find another accountant. He begged me to keep him on.

Mid January he then wants to know why I want his income details. AAAAAAAAAAAARGH !

I again ask him for departures from and arrivals in the UK for the Seafarers' Earnings Deduction. He then says that will be too difficult to work out. AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH !

I ask him for his FULL name. He gives me his first name and surname.

Later his passport is seen with TWO middle names (admittedly they were a bit poncey and he probably tried to hide them). AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH !

Some time later, when looking at his HMRC online service record I discover he has a third middle name which is an archaic English geographical area (and most embarrassing to reveal). AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH

I eventually send him his tax returns for three years to where he lives 200 miles away. I then phoned him on 30th Jan to see if they arrived at his home to be told he was half way up the motorway to see some friends who lived a few miles away from my practice so he would not be able to open the envelope until his return in February 2015. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

After about 30 emails and 7 hours wasted on probably the simplest tax returns with only one source of ship earnings I was thinking of jumping off a cliff.

I sometimes wish I was a bus driver or postman or some other job where I did not have to deal with lunatics and time wasters.

 

 

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By Howard Marks
01st Feb 2015 09:08

Going the extra mile
I was lucky enough to be done in decent time this year, a couple of late nights along the way but no huge stress.

I was however called by a friend of a client on my mobile at 5.30 yesterday. I was driving at the time with the wife and two kids, off to get some dinner. He was online trying to do his return. I'd pulled over by this point, had him FaceTime me, he flipped the screen round so I could see his laptop and talked him through the various screens.

15 mins of my life I won't see again but my good deed for the day I guess. The wife wasn't best impressed though...

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By petersaxton
01st Feb 2015 09:26

Lunatics and time wasters

I would have thought one second after midnight would be classed as late.

If it was very near the deadline you could argue that it was late because of some delay caused by HMRCs systems but if you are having to file so late to the deadline I would expect it's the client's fault.

I think I need to have a weed out of clients. Many don't respond to questions. I think where I go wrong is not chasing often enough. I think an accountants excuse is usually pressure of work. If you ask 10 clients for information and five provide the information you work on the five's accounts. It is important to still chase the other five. If you are still trying to get information out of half of your clients within a month of the deadline you are in serious trouble.

I will be asking clients to ensure they work on their accounts records so they are ready for the year end of 31 March and move them onto Clear Books if possible starting 1 April. If they don't send me their data in April/May I will chase them by email and phone and say they need to look for another accountant if I don't get the information soon. If I didn't spend so much time chasing the lazy I am sure I could easily find time to get better clients.

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By User deleted
01st Feb 2015 10:56

What I don't get is the practitioners who have to submit their OWN returns on the last day! Yes, there are stupid, lazy, hopeless, totally inept, selfish etc. clients who will leave it til the last second. But why oh why would an accountant?????

I get thoroughly [***] off if I can't file mine on 6 April (either waiting for the bank to update the annual interest figure or software not yet ready). I just hope that none of you who are doing your own late have the nerve to criticise your clients!

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Replying to Fum:
By petersaxton
01st Feb 2015 17:06

Accountants v clients

Flash Gordon wrote:

What I don't get is the practitioners who have to submit their OWN returns on the last day! Yes, there are stupid, lazy, hopeless, totally inept, selfish etc. clients who will leave it til the last second. But why oh why would an accountant?????

I get thoroughly [***] off if I can't file mine on 6 April (either waiting for the bank to update the annual interest figure or software not yet ready). I just hope that none of you who are doing your own late have the nerve to criticise your clients!

Sometimes it takes me a few weeks to be sure that all supplier invoices have been received and then I do my VAT return. I do my year end accounts mainly from from the four quarters VAT returns.

I have been guilty of filing my tax returns a lot later than they should be filed. I was determined to change but I have been putting so many things off because they didn't have to be done by 31 January that now it seems an impossible job to catch up!

I spent most of today with a client who decided to register for VAT but not issue VAT invoices and then put invoices through his VAT registered business when it should have been his non-VAT registered business. The corrections and transfers of money will take him some time to put right. It would have been better if he hadn't used proper accounting software to get it wrong with!

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Replying to Fum:
Stepurhan
By stepurhan
02nd Feb 2015 08:57

Deliberate choice

Flash Gordon wrote:
What I don't get is the practitioners who have to submit their OWN returns on the last day! Yes, there are stupid, lazy, hopeless, totally inept, selfish etc. clients who will leave it til the last second. But why oh why would an accountant?????
For some it is a matter of pride that they won't deal with their own until all their clients' returns are done. It is not a matter of being lazy, etc. It's the same sort of not putting themselves first that leads to late nights/weekends in January.
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Man of Kent
By Kent accountant
01st Feb 2015 16:45

Underestimated

I worked harder than I would have liked in January.

Yes a few clients were slow in getting their information to me but the main reason for being busy was the extra work I picked up during the month and doing non essential work (ltd co accounts which could have waited a couple of weeks).

I underestimated how long it would all take - my fault.

Will it be better next year? Probably not, but then I'd rather be extra busy in January and not June or July.

Better get cracking with the vat returns I need to do by Friday.

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By Maslins
02nd Feb 2015 09:01

One was submitted ~17:30 on Friday.  Think we've got about 6 unsubmitted which will be late.  In all cases it's not our fault.  One we could possibly have done Friday eve/Saturday as got information at 16:55 on Friday, but decided not to.  Even if we had done, we'd still have needed to wait for client approval (and main reason why it's been left so late is client not particularly responsive).

As a couple of accountants have said above, why put yourself through that?  If a client ignores 9&1/2 months of requests for information then gives it to you last minute, will you be that upset if they go elsewhere next year because in their eyes you decided to slack off near the deadline?

Also largely agree with what Flash said re accountants own returns.  Never done mine 6 April, but why you'd leave it until January I don't know.  Guess it's a case of the cobbler's shoes/builder's house.

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By claudialowe
02nd Feb 2015 09:36

Still got 4 outstanding....

I have checked online, and none of them have submitted themselves, or via another firm.  A sense of let-down that I still haven't "finished" :-(

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Replying to DJKL:
By petersaxton
02nd Feb 2015 11:09

Updated?

claudialowe wrote:

I have checked online, and none of them have submitted themselves, or via another firm.  A sense of let-down that I still haven't "finished" :-(

Isn't it too early to be sure? HMRC can take a few days to update.

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By Tim Vane
02nd Feb 2015 18:06

I would echo what petersaxton suggests about not relying on what the HMRC site is saying: a number of returns I filed on Friday have not yet shown as submitted, despite me having the email confirmation and the digital signature.

 

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By Paul D Utherone
02nd Feb 2015 18:11

It was still showing as

updated to 30 Jan 2015 when I checked @ 16:30 today

 

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By Marion Hayes
03rd Feb 2015 11:30

Info @ 2 February

at top of page this morning but the last return actually shown received is 27 January.

The others no longer show a return was issued on 6th April though it says you can file or amend using commercial software

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By carnmores
03rd Feb 2015 12:58

There is an error on teh site

i have submission receipt but the main screen says submiited but not received , i expect they will sort it out in due course ..... or maybe not

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By claudialowe
04th Feb 2015 14:51

One just arrived......

One of mine has just turned up - "terribly sorry" goes client, "no probs" goes me, "you've got a £100 fine".  "No probs" goes client "I quite understand".  Well that is tomorrow sorted out then!

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By Anne Robinson
04th Feb 2015 15:25

Some think that £100 is quite cheap so that they can put it off for yet another day.

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By Steve Holloway
04th Feb 2015 16:37

One that got away ..

vague muttering at the start of the week from the client that he had given it to his wife to do. I set a deadline of Thursday a.m. and didn't chase again. Feel a bit cheated that he spoiled my 100% record. Can't believe where the time has gone since April when I was looking at 113 returns pending!

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Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
04th Feb 2015 22:43

Forgot this one

I have a director who is good at keeping the company books and we never have a problem with the annual accounts but he leaves his SA returns for 3 years at a time, so the last one we did (2012) carried a £1,600 penalty and he's already up to £1,300 on the 2013 missing return. To his credit he has paid all the penalties.

I didn't bother to log the 2014 one, which is why I thought we'd done all of them, but that too is now accumulating penalties.

When we get the information the return take us about 20 minutes each year....weird, must ask him one day why he does it as he hates paying tax.

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By petersaxton
04th Feb 2015 23:02

As they say up North

"There's nowt so queer as folk".

I've never said it but it's true.

Maybe he hates paying tax but loves paying penalties?

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