WRITTEN ON January 28th, 2005 BY Richard S AND STORED IN Uncategorized

With great relief, I’ve completed my Self Assessment Tax return. This year, the IR online service worked well for my simple tax affairs with just one problem over tax relief for pension contributions. Having (300kbps cable) “broadband” helped.

There is a nice option for donating all/part of your tax refund via tax efficient “gift aid” to your chosen charity.

I’ve filed “online” every year since 1996/97. In early years, the IR sent us a “free” program disk and we then sent the result back “online.” Battling with bugs in the early submission software cost a lot in dial-up Internet charges. Recently, the whole process has been “online.” Filing online takes time so a “flat-rate” or “broadband” Internet connection is useful. I always prepare by first collecting the figures in MS Excel.

This year, the IR’s online “help” is better, but not always clear to us humans. Also, navigation between pages is rather tedious. The PDF version of the IR’s Tax Guide makes my ancient PC splutter.

Self Assessment Online worked well with my modified Firefox 1.0 web browser.

My next IR online task will be corporation tax, closely followed by P35s etc.