UK Tax Returns
Fellow working class citizens, you have been working hard for your wages, but the at the end of the year now you have to deal with filing your taxes. Doesn’t the government deal with all this for me? Why should I worry about my returns? My government knows everything it needs to know about me from my employer anyways, right? Well, sadly it doesn’t always work like this. The PAYE (Pay as you earn) system in place is incredibly useful and generally accomplishes all this, but in certain scenarios there is good reason to fill out your own form. People’s lives change year to year and due to this one must take the responsibility unto themselves to ensure fair reparations from their government. Many citizens do not take full advantage of the many deductions available for them on their returns, and in doing so are in essence wasting their own money. Let’s talk about a few simple things one can learn and use to ensure this is not the case.
First, there’s the tax return itself. The HMRC tax return is a document in the UK that is filed through the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) that is used to declare one’s liability for taxation. For the most part, a normal worker does not have to worry about these. The PAYE system is set up to ensure fair taxation on all workers according to their tax codes. However, there are many cases where this does not cover the bases and misses some fairly common workers in the process. There are many workers who should file, but examples of common cases where employees should be filing are those who are self-employed in any way, work overseas at some point in the year, or most commonly employees who are paying out of pocket expenses for their employment.
Those who are paying out of pocket expenses to their employer are at most risk of overpaying on their taxes, though there is a quick fix to this problem. Get a P87 form to claim uniform tax rebate according to uniform tax rebate is available for workers to file expenses paid as part of their job. Most commonly these are the AMAP(Authorized Mileage Allowance Payments) relief and the Uniform Tax Rebate.
The AMAP exists to help employees who must maintain and drive their own vehicles while under employment and traveling for business reasons. Within the P87 it allows you to claim deductions out of your taxes and receive a refund based on the amount of miles up to your first 10,000 and then again on miles above 10,000. This is a fairly common refund that is ignored by many who do not know how to properly file a P87 form, or are not aware of its existence.
Uniform Tax Rebate from HMRC
Uniform Tax Rebates exist for employees who must pay out of pocket for the maintenance of work mandated uniforms for their job, this can be claimed directly from HMRC by requesting a P87. These can range from the typical uniforms one thinks of such as doctors and police all the way to a simple t-shirt with a corporate logo on it that you have to wear to work. All of these are included, and are given a simple flat rate of £60 in most cases. You may file these for up to 4 years, including the current year, you have been wearing and taking care of this uniform. Like the AMAP there are many employees who are not taking advantage of this tax relief and are missing out on money that is owed to them via their tax returns. However, unlike the AMAP, the Uniform Tax Rebate is set up to change your tax code after your first filing. This means that if you have filed for the Uniform Tax Rebate previous you should not have to refile again and your taxes should be adjusted accordingly for as long as you remain in employment in a uniform.
To properly file all of this one must go to the HMRC website and fill out the forms properly to their best knowledge and wait 5 weeks to ensure everything has been properly taken care of in their form. If something is amiss and the HMRC thinks you are claiming something that should not be deducted fines and interest will be imposed on the tax paying worker depending on the amount of money claimed. To simplify all this, many people turn to software to help expedite the process of filing their tax returns and to also be sure that they have not forgotten anything important in their forms.
The HMRC even recommend and includes a list of popular tax software to help tax payers with this process. First, they help with calculating your total return based on the information given which is helpful in a reassuring sense that you will not have to wait the 5+ weeks for the HM Revenue and Customs Uniform Tax Rebate form to file. Next, these software double check and ask questions to ensure you are receiving all the deductions available to you. There are many types of deductions, and can be easily overlooked by the layman without an accountant at hand. The software helps and expedites this process. The software are also very useful in ensure your information is accurate terms more easily explained and simplified than what may be available in a regular tax form. All of this works in tandem to help the tax-payer not make any costly mistakes on their forms. Beyond these helpful tasks, tax software are also able to file the taxes for you once you have completed your returns and the software has double checked your filings. This means no sending and waiting for the post to find out your status.
Be sure to get the most out of your yearly taxes by filing for these common tax returns with resources like https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/uniforms-work-clothing-and-tools that many employees fall under, such as the Uniform Tax Rebate, AMAP, and others for those who expend their hard earned money for employment. Do not allow your tax dollars to go to waste like many citizens who entrust fully with PAYE, there are many things that cannot be accounted for and it is your job to ensure full payment from your government.