End of tax year

The end of the current tax year on 5 April 2020 is fast approaching. Even in the current crisis, you still need to keep your accounts up to date, and now’s the time to make sure you organise your finances to minimise your tax bill and maximise your profits.

For specific advice about business tax and what to do at year end, always speak to your accountant. However, it’s always best to be prepared, so for the self-employed and small business owners, here are some of the tax issues you need to consider:

• Claim all allowable deductions and expenses, including pension contributions, business insurance, professional memberships and training.
• Don’t forget the smaller business expenses like business mileage or receipts for office supplies. The small expenses all add up, so make sure you note them all down and save those receipts.
• Make good use of the Annual Investment Allowance to invest in items like new company vehicles and office equipment.
• If you can, consider making an early corporation tax payment to HMRC as they will pay you interest paid from the date you make the payment to the actual corporation tax deadline.
• Pay Directors’ bonuses within nine months of the tax year end to avoid any additional tax payments.
• Any salary paid to your family is tax deductible as long as it is genuine and paid at market rates.

Make sure you have used all of your tax allowances before the end of the tax year as you cannot take the allowances over into the new one.

Keep copies of your important documents

Keeping copies of all relevant financial documents is a legal requirement as well as essential for any queries, disputes or audit trails. Our small businesses services are designed to help you get everything organised, including printing and photocopying from paper or electronics documents to creating bound presentation folders. We can scan your important business and tax documents into electronic formats and email them to you. And you can be assured of our complete confidentiality.

Keep your important documents safe and secure

Once you have all of your documents in order, keep them stored safely and securely and make sure they are easily accessible so you can retrieve them if needed in the future. We have an excellent range of business stationery to help you record, file and index your important documents such as copies of tax returns, bank statements, correspondence and receipts, and keep them organised and tidy in folders, boxes and envelopes for filing and storing. And consider keeping copies of electronic documents on USB sticks as additional backup.

Dispose of any confidential waste safely and securely

Any paperwork that does not need to be stored should be disposed of securely. You do not want any of your confidential waste falling into the wrong hands, and the latest GDPR and Data Protection rules mean any business can face hefty fines if there is a data breach. So make sure your shredder is still working – if not, we have them in stock!

Post office

Finally, if you need to send any documents to your accountant or to the tax office, then use our Post Office Services to buy postage and send the documents by standard, recorded or special delivery.