December 04, 2024
Article
Whether you are self-employed and running your business as a sole-trade or a director/shareholder operating through a limited company, from time to time you will have to interact with HMRC.
HMRC’s record on customer service is currently at rock bottom and for those of us in the accountancy sector this has long been an issue.
Over the last 20 years, the way we interact with HMRC has moved online and in a lot of respects this has been successful, however there are always times when things don’t work, “the computer says no” and trying to resolve these issues can be a nightmare. For some taxes, HMRC have also stopped sending out postal reminders and the onus is on you to remember to pay taxes on time.
For anyone in business it is essential that you have a business tax account set up (often referred to as your government gateway ID). If you employ staff or are VAT registered, you will have one of these as your payroll and VAT submissions will be being made using it.
Through the business tax account, you can manage all aspects of your relationship with HMRC. This includes:
- Notifying HMRC of a change of address;
- making a payment;
- checking what you owe to HMRC;
- setting up a direct debit;
- setting up a time to pay arrangement if you can’t pay your taxes on time.
You can also find details of your tax references in your business tax account and your VAT registration certificate. These are things that we are frequently asked for and whilst we are always happy to help, it might be quicker and easier if you are able to access these things yourself.
VAT and PAYE have to be set up on these tax accounts to enable regular submissions to be made but in my experience, business owners aren’t making use of these tax accounts enough.
If this is something you would like to find out more about please get in touch with me or your usual Albert Goodman contact. Digitally engaging with HMRC is going to be essential going forward and is something we all need to embrace.