https://www.taxreck.com/tax-guides.html Plain-English UK tax guides: self assessment, CIS, corporation tax and capital allowances, each checked against GOV.UK. en-gb Fri, 16 Oct 2026 09:00:00 GMT https://www.taxreck.com/content-creator-expenses.html https://www.taxreck.com/content-creator-expenses.html Fri, 16 Oct 2026 09:00:00 GMT Every cost faces the same test: was it bought for the business, and is it used for the business? Cameras, lights, microphones and editing software usually pass. A phone, a car and your home pass for the share you use for work. Everyday clothes and ordinary meals almost never pass, even when they appear on camera. Travel counts when the trip itself is for work, not when work happens on a holiday. Self assessment Expenses https://www.taxreck.com/rd-tax-relief-small-companies.html https://www.taxreck.com/rd-tax-relief-small-companies.html Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT A company can claim R&D tax relief for a project that tries to make an advance in science or technology by resolving an uncertainty that a competent professional could not readily resolve. Under the merged scheme the company receives a taxable credit of 20% of its qualifying costs, worth about 15p to 16p in the pound after corporation tax. A loss-making company that spends at least 30% of its total costs on R&D can instead claim enhanced support: an extra 86% deduction and a tax-free payable credit of 14.5% of the loss it gives up. Two forms come before the return, one for every claim and one for first claims, and the second has a deadline six months after the year end. Company tax R&D relief https://www.taxreck.com/do-i-need-to-file-a-tax-return.html https://www.taxreck.com/do-i-need-to-file-a-tax-return.html Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT You must send a self assessment tax return if HMRC asks you for one, or if in the tax year you earned more than £1,000 from self-employment before expenses, were a partner in a business, had capital gains tax to pay, or had income that reached you untaxed, such as rent above the reporting lines or more than £10,000 of savings interest or dividends. If it is your first return for the year that ended on 5 April 2026, you have to tell HMRC by 5 October 2026. Self assessment Who must file https://www.taxreck.com/register-for-self-assessment.html https://www.taxreck.com/register-for-self-assessment.html Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT If you need to send a tax return for the year that ended on 5 April 2026 and have never sent one, you have to tell HMRC by 5 October 2026. You do that by registering for self assessment online. HMRC then posts you a Unique Taxpayer Reference, a ten digit number that usually arrives around 15 days later, and you need it to file. Registering late can bring a penalty, and it does not move the date the tax is due: 31 January 2027. Self assessment Registering https://www.taxreck.com/self-assessment-deadlines-penalties.html https://www.taxreck.com/self-assessment-deadlines-penalties.html Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT For the tax year that ended on 5 April 2026, a paper return is due by 31 October 2026 and an online return by 31 January 2027, which is also the day the tax has to be paid. A return that is one day late costs £100. After three months HMRC adds £10 a day for up to 90 days, and after six and twelve months it adds 5% of the tax or £300, whichever is more. Tax paid late is charged 5% at 30 days, six months and twelve months, with interest on top. Self assessment Deadlines https://www.taxreck.com/self-assessment-accountant-cost.html https://www.taxreck.com/self-assessment-accountant-cost.html Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT It depends on what has to go into the return. A return with one kind of income and tidy records costs less than one with a business, a rental property and a sale in the same year. Our own fees are fixed and published: £150 for one tax return, and £300 a year for a sole trader or a landlord, which includes the accounts behind the return. If you are self-employed, the cost of preparing and sending the return itself cannot be claimed as a business expense. Self assessment Accountant fees https://www.taxreck.com/payments-on-account-explained.html https://www.taxreck.com/payments-on-account-explained.html Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Payments on account are advance payments towards your next tax bill. There are two, each equal to half of your last bill, due by midnight on 31 January and 31 July. You have to make them unless your last bill was under £1,000, or more than 80% of your tax was collected at source. In a first year the whole bill and the first payment on account fall due together, so a bill of £3,000 means £4,500 to pay in January and £1,500 in July. Self assessment Paying your bill https://www.taxreck.com/cis-tax-return-refund.html https://www.taxreck.com/cis-tax-return-refund.html Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT Under the Construction Industry Scheme your contractor takes 20% from the labour part of every payment, or 30% if you are not registered, and pays it to HMRC as an advance on your tax. After 5 April you report your income and those deductions on your self assessment return. If more was taken than your real bill, which is the usual result once your personal allowance and expenses are counted, HMRC pays the difference back. CIS Self assessment https://www.taxreck.com/closing-a-company-corporation-tax.html https://www.taxreck.com/closing-a-company-corporation-tax.html Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT A company closes voluntarily when its directors and shareholders choose to end it, by applying for strike off or by a members' voluntary liquidation. It is forced when Companies House strikes it off for not filing, or a creditor has it wound up by the court. Either way the company still owes its final tax return and any corporation tax. The difference is control: close it yourself and you decide the order things happen in and what reaches the shareholders; have it closed for you and whatever is left in the company can pass to the Crown. Company tax Closing a company https://www.taxreck.com/capital-allowances-tax-planning.html https://www.taxreck.com/capital-allowances-tax-planning.html Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:00:00 GMT You do not have to claim every capital allowance you are entitled to. If a full claim would push your profit below the £12,570 personal allowance, the part below that line saves you nothing, because that profit was never going to be taxed. Claim only enough to bring profit down to the allowance and keep the rest for later years. And if you expect a bigger income next year, the same purchase can be worth 42p of tax for every pound then, against 26p now, so the date you buy matters as much as what you buy. Capital allowances Tax planning