Lockdown got your finances down? How can tax help...

So, if 2020 and the current UK #coronavirus lockdown has given some of us anything (useful I mean), it's time. As your friendly online tax practitioner, I thought I'd share some handy tips of what you could be looking at if you have some downtime on your hands.

1. GET YOUR TAX RETURN SORTED OUT!

Whether that means doing it yourself through your HMRC personal tax account, or working with your tax practitioner to get it filed early, now is a good time to do it, and not just because it gets it out of the way. For those with payments on account to make in July (although we all know you have the ability to defer those payments until January) it could result in a reduction in that payment. Similarly, if you work in the construction industry as a self-employed contractor you're probably owed a tax rebate from your CIS deductions. Working with some clients during lockdown I've seen 4 figure sum rebates, which have been really handy.

2. SEE IF YOU CAN MAKE A MARRIAGE ALLOWANCE CLAIM

If you're married or in a civil partnership, can you answer yes to both of these questions:

• Are you a basic rate taxpayer?
• Does your spouse earn less than £12,500 a year? 

If you can, then congratulations your spouse/civil partner might be able to transfer £1,250 of their personal allowance to you resulting in a tax rebate of up to £250 every tax year (6 April to 5 April the next year). You can backdate your claim to include any tax year since 5 April 2016 that you were eligible for Marriage Allowance. This is possible whether you're an employee or self-employed, check out THIS LINK to see if you can claim.

3. SELF EMPLOYED? HAVE YOU CLAIMED SEISS?

If you were self-employed in the 2019/20 tax year, have submitted your self-assessment tax return for the 2018/19 tax year, had your self-employment affected by coronavirus, and had profits under £50,000 for the last three years then you should be eligible and HMRC should have written to you.

If they have, and you haven't got around to applying, DO IT NOW! There's a mistaken belief amongst many in the self-employed community that they can only claim if they haven't been working at all. That is simply not true, it is only necessary that the coronavirus outbreak has had a detrimental effect on your business. But remember, any payment you receive under SEISS is taxable in 2020/21, so make sure you keep some aside to cover the tax if you can. You can also check out another of my blogs about HMRC's new powers should anyone make a fraudulent claim.