[Freeptube]

Just received my letter informing me to do a tax return for last year. First time I've been self-employed and rather get it over and done with. I could just pay some scrub accountant £100, give him/her all my receipts and invoices and bank statements and forget about but I could probably get it done myself. I have 9 months to do it but like homework from school, if I don't do it now I'll forget about it.

I registered for hmrc.gov.uk online service 6 months ago. The email contained nothing except they'll contact me by post. The only post I received from them since was tax credit stuff and in January my NI bill. No login or info. Today's letter telling me deadlines and penalties. My UTR is in the top-right.

I have been given no login ID or password and when I tried to create a new one I couldn't register for self-assessment. Luckily this isn't the 31st January.

I'll phone them tomorrow anyway, but what are others' experiences? A few years back there were huge issues but these seem to have dried up. What do I class as expenses? i.e. can I class my lunch as a work expense and travel expenses?

[N9u9ie4p]

What's the business? An accountant should really save you more than he costs - in my experience anyway.

[VUzgOhgv]

£100 for the whole year? thats seriously cheap, ive been getting quotes for around £500 ish!

[Overlord]

Depending on what your self employed work is, £100 is definitely cheap, cheapest I've seen charged to our clients is around £250, going all the way up to £10,000 depending on what work we did and their business

[VUzgOhgv]

First tax return for three months cost me £120. My business records werent difficult nor did it require much time to do, a few hours tops And that is considered cheap

[curcercanty]

if your business isnt particularly complicated and you have a good record of things then there is no reason to be scared of filing your own return.... unless you want to start claiming things (not car/milage allowance which is easy) do it yourself. Unless you think the 2 hours putting in numbers into an easy online form isnt worth your time.

p.s. i managed to get a 'friend' to put some papers together from which i filled in my return within 15 mins.

[VUzgOhgv]

if your business isnt particularly complicated and you have a good record of things then there is no reason to be scared of filing your own return.... unless you want to start claiming things (not car/milage allowance which is easy) do it yourself. Unless you think the 2 hours putting in numbers into an easy online form isnt worth your time.

p.s. i managed to get a 'friend' to put some papers together from which i filled in my return within 15 mins.

Agreed unless youre an idiot like me or dont trust yourself.... also like me haha!

[AXGreg]

Just received my letter informing me to do a tax return for last year. First time I've been self-employed and rather get it over and done with. I could just pay some scrub accountant £100, give him/her all my receipts and invoices and bank statements and forget about but I could probably get it done myself. I have 9 months to do it but like homework from school, if I don't do it now I'll forget about it.

I registered for hmrc.gov.uk online service 6 months ago. The email contained nothing except they'll contact me by post. The only post I received from them since was tax credit stuff and in January my NI bill. No login or info. Today's letter telling me deadlines and penalties. My UTR is in the top-right.

I have been given no login ID or password and when I tried to create a new one I couldn't register for self-assessment. Luckily this isn't the 31st January.

I'll phone them tomorrow anyway, but what are others' experiences? A few years back there were huge issues but these seem to have dried up. What do I class as expenses? i.e. can I class my lunch as a work expense and travel expenses?

I'd get an accountant, at least for the first couple of years while you work out what you can expense or not. My dads accountant saves him way more than he costs. You'll need a creative accountant to save the most, so don't go with the cheapest.

[Freeptube]

£100 is what my friend gets charged, although he's been using her. Also it's only for 6 months' worth, but I'm sure I could do it myself.

[AXGreg]

£100 is what my friend gets charged, although he's been using her. Also it's only for 6 months' worth, but I'm sure I could do it myself.

I'm fairly sure you could, but as you don't know what you can deduct and what you can't you'll probably come out a lot worse off than if you went to an accountant.

[Overlord]

I'd get an accountant, at least for the first couple of years while you work out what you can expense or not. My dads accountant saves him way more than he costs. You'll need a creative accountant to save the most, so don't go with the cheapest.

Creative accounting gets you sent to jail, I think the word you're looking for is "clever"

@russ18uk, I'm training to be an accountant and working in practice for nearly 2 years now, if you need help you can PM if you like.