If you are self-employed, you are responsible for declaring and paying taxes yourself. PLEASE NOTE, the deadline for sending the electronic income statement for the financial year 2020-2021 was the 31st of January 2022.
If you did not file your annual tax return by the deadline, HMRC will charge you with a late submission penalty, which will increase until you do. The report must be submitted even if you have not worked or had no profit, suffered a loss or if this was your last year of self-employment.
Fines
As Benjamin Franklin said: “There is nothing real in this world, but death and taxes.”
If you miss the deadline for submitting the annual income report (self-assessment) and continue to “procrastinate” – you will inevitably have to pay fines. The penalty system is easy to understand: the longer you are late, the more you will have to pay.
So what penalty do you get if you are already late? The penalty table below will help you understand the consequences of not filing your tax return on time.
| PENALTY FOR FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TAX RETURN ON TIME | |
| DELAY PERIOD | SIZE OF THE FINE |
| 1 day | £100 |
| 3 months | £100 plus a further £10 for each day late (the penalty will accumulate up to 90 days i.e. up to £900) |
| 6 months | Prior fines plus a further £300 or 5% of accrued taxes (whichever amount is larger). |
| 12 months | Prior fines plus a further £300 or 5% of accrued taxes (whichever amount is larger). |
So if you rush to submit your tax return for 2020-21 financial year before the end of April, the penalty will remain the same at £100 as if you were just one day late. However, a delay of, say, a year can increase the fine to £1,600. This is really a considerable amount of money. For all those who did not have time to submit a tax return by January the 31st, we recommend that you do not waste time and declare your income for the financial year 2020-2021 as soon as possible. This way you will avoid some impressive fines.
