AccountingWeb
News
Tax Return Guidance By Simon Sweetman
Simon Sweetman unpacks the latest tax return guide, "The book that they don't want you to read..."The delivery van came to the door the other morning. Not, this time, another case of wine, nor even more boxes of paper from Staples online or the latest piece of weird tech purchased in a moment of weakness and which I shall never set up. No, this was the self assessment tax return guide for 2007/8. Notes, that is, on the redesigned individual tax return, with guidance too on the supplementary pages, the short return, and the trust and partnership SA returns.
Now I am aware that most of you will have hurled this into the corner with a muffled curse (possibly not so muffled) rather than opened it with joy and expectation. Luckily (unless you’re buying the large print version) it’s the wrong shape so you won’t have thought it was the new Wisden (it was much too early anyway, but hope springs eternal).
In a sense this is the book they don’t want you to read, because it is essentially a guide to the paper return, and they certainly don’t want agents completing paper returns.
But let’s assume you’re actually going to use it. First, if you’re going to be picky (and yes, we will be picky) the absence of an index, continuous page numbers or tags makes it difficult to find the pages you need quickly.
Remarkably, there are now three possibilities for the self employed. If your turnover was less than £30,000 you have the three line account: between £30,000 and £64,000 you can use the short self employed pages: and over £64,000 you must complete the full pages. But of course you can always use the full version.
It seems bigger than last year, but that may well just be the effect of larger and clearer printing, somehow a bit like the way that the rewritten Taxes Acts, though easier to use than their predecessors, actually take up even more room. It can take time and space to explain things. Then you realise – it’s in the small print – that it no longer contains the help sheets. On the other hand the partnership and trust tax return guides are now packed into the same volume…and the tax calculation pages are now 38 long. I have still never heard of anyone using the tax calculation pages and getting the right answer. And there is no point in doing it now, because if you get the paper return in on time there is time left for HMRC to tell you what you have to pay by 31 January.
And there is the guide to the short tax return, which again makes it clear that you can complete it online (you will be completing the full version, but presumably won’t even see the pages you don’t want).
What this guides you to is the new redesigned tax return, based on the short return (which must have been fairly successful, since there have been very few squeals of protest about it except for the insistence that it should be available online : an odd notion since you don’t need it online as you don’t even have to look at the pages you don’t want). So the main return shrinks to six pages. Now of course one point here is that this is designed to be read by machine (to avoid the main problem, which is that people bored out of their skulls make mistakes). Memory says that SA tax returns were always intended to be read by OCR, but it has not I think ever been done successfully.
And of course what this has done is changed all the box numbers, so if you’ve learned them off by heart, tough luck.
But the real story is that HMRC have probably now got this about right, just as they don’t want you to use it. Funny old world, innit?
Number of comments: 2
AccountingWEB.co.uk 25-Mar-2008
Categories: Tax Features, Tax - Simon Sweetman
Times read: 3107
The lack of the Help Sheets is, to my mind, a great blow. To have these all in one place for easy reference was very, very useful - they were well-written & clear, something you don't always associate with HMRC.
Now I'll have to phone the Order Line to ask for them all & bind them into a booklet myself.
My copy arrived today and I opened it. After half an hour I was glad I used software so this will become used for reference only. I am confused by the opening notes on the self employment pages stating - short form - "you must not use the short pages if ...." On the full form its the same text but this time its labelled "use the SA full pages if..." However they both state you cannot use the short form when you no longer prepare your accounts using the cash basis but have changed to GAAP...... I thought the cash basis was outlawed some time ago. To my mind this means the short pages cannot be used which normal GAAP accounts which means not at all.
Simon is correct that it is difficult to find sections quickly. The coloured tags have gone. I shall place markers in my pages.
