Hey Freelancers

I'm doing my first ever tax return at lunch time today, and I have almost no idea what I'm doing.

If you see a grown man sitting a notebook in Starbucks on Tottenham Court Road today, trying to suppress stress-induced sobbing, then give him a hug.

roxy - you should be filling in forms not doing photochops!!

classic avoidanc e strategy there :^ ]

anyone know if i get fined £100 if payment is late? i've sent in my tax return in already. tried calling the helpline but cant get through.

the online service are bad, i've applied twice for a pin, still nothing. but i bet its just volume of late submissions today that's fudged the system up. roxy (and everyone else i guess), you should just ride over to the offices at euston and hand in a paper form, i filled my last two out there and then. i think they can give you the copies you need. try sobbing slightly and they practically fill it in for you. :D

Dude! I'm so done with my tax return. All I have to do is hit the submit button. However I'm Pshopping while I sit here on hold with the various tax offices.
Apparently the online services has crashed!!!!!! Their advice: "Keep trying or fill out a paper copy" I said, "I'm all done and if I could see the online one I'd print it off and hand it in. BUT I CAN'T FRICKIN SEE IT YOU BASTARDS!"
Don't know what to do.
Gonna cry or keep photoshopping the Brainy up above.

Part of your problem might be the server at their end getting hammered with all the last minute returns . I submitted online last night quite late and after I hit submit it just hung for ages without giving me a confirmation. After about 30 minutes I closed it down and then noticed I had an email acknowledgement anyway. Wierd.

You'll get fined if it gets there tomorrow, so the man on the phone told me. phone them on 08453003939 and they'll tell you your closest office, there's one in Waterloo too...still not quite over the stress even though the form's done now...

mattster, don't try to get a pin again. It will come (though it can take up to 3 days), mine took about 8 hours. The problem is everything you ask for one it cancels out your first request. SO the first pin you get will be invalid and you gotta wait for the 2nd one.
Drinking in Euston anyone?

billa anyone know if i get fined £100 if payment is late? i've sent in my tax return in already. tried calling the helpline but cant get through.

If you submit but don't pay today they will start charging you interest. After a month you get a 5% fine.

that's all it'll be, just huge volume of submissions, roxy, is there no way you can whip up a paper version? was it complicated? if you could do the paper version, it may be less stressful...

i think my tax office is in bootle merseyside, i wouldn't want to ride all the way up there it's a shithole and it's windy out there.
i remember when doing my own tax i would be happy that i wasn't having to pay loads more than i thought only to realise i hadn't added the class 4 National insurance or payment on account, then spend the rest of the day musing over the amount i owed and feeling a bit ill about the whole thing.

yeah, i forgot to add student loan contributions for the last three years.... :(

still... they are working it all out for me, so i just gotta fork out around £1600 .... as soon as possible.... :(

Reading this thread has made me depressed... I owe the taxman a shitload... :(
Got my return done on time this year (for a change) only for my accountant to tell me it wasn't actually due yet!? I'm flummoxed...
Going 'limited' this week anyway, anyone else on here gone down that road?

"still... they are working it all out for me, so i just gotta fork out around £1600 .... as soon as possible.... :( "

plus national insurance plus payments on account :-)

Object: Did you notice nakedhippy.com is taken? :)

Can't you tax peeps just take it to an accountant? If you are gonna get fined for being late, you may as well use the fine value to get someone else to do it and then you shouldn't get fined, right, because there's a longer period for submissions coming from registered tax accountants (there was in Oz).

That's worrying. The dogsballs site is taken too? WTF

mattster blaster i forgot to declare myself freelance... :D

I forgot to actually go freelance.

ha! i've been un-legit since november, start a full-time job on monday so seems like very little point... :D

I had to write about tax today, now I have to invoice for it and put it in my accounts. Tax is invading every aspect of my life this week.

http://www.smartplanet.com/news/finance/10000629/taxes-don-t-have-to-be-environmentally-taxing.htm

I just got an e mail from my accountant people saying because I was late giving them the details that I gave them 3 times before they finally aknowledged it mine won't be going in on time. Going to make them pay the late fee stuff, the tax people hate me at the moment so I'm bound to have to get charged

that sucks, make sure your accountants don't squirm outta that one.

2 years after starting work here i finally got my NI number yesterday,
However they spelt my name completely wrong, "Tapping" is pretty simple right?

ha! i feel your pain, Bibby gets all sorts :D

Just been told at work today i need to go freelance and start being self employed. NO idea what the hell im doing but i got 2 months to do it. Not lookin forward to this time next year already!!