From the 1st Oct 2008 the beggers have withdrawn the postage paid envelope for sending back the return. I guess they want people to file on line and jump through the hoops to get an government online ID, grrr...
...but postage is a legitimate business expense - so it is deductible :-)
Peter
I don't see a problem with filing online, you only need a username and password, if you're VAT registered they already know who you are and where you are.
On the other hand, I don't think I'm quite ready to set up a Direct Debit so they can rake the money direct from the account.
Dave Liquorice coughed up some electrons that declared:
I agree that getting an online password AND activating it can be painful. But you only need to do it once.
But the online VAT return (and the self assessment) is quite painless, worth doing IMO. Did VAT returns a couple of years back that way. Did SA this year and got a refund in 4 days flat :)
Cheers
Tim
Yes, I've done SA that way for a few years now. It's remarkably good for something implemented by/for the government.
It's no worse than you have to go through with some on-line bakns.
It's a no brainer, for anyone with a brain ;-)
MBQ
Their "VAT portal" is about the worst website ever; but beyond that, no problem with the return itself.
Me neither!
Last time I got authrised for a bank it was painless, got user ID and password in branch, waited for dongle to arrive registered it and I was =
in. Lst time I looked at the government thing it appeared to want all manner of information and a paper form sending back after they sent you =
something else then they sent you your via snail mail...
I'll have another look, I also miffed 'cause the VAT return this quarter= is going to be =A30.00 (zero) as I've not had any payments come in due t= o being ill and not working.
As of 2010, you'll *have* to do it online anyway as they're withdrawing the paper alternative (wife's a VAT Assurance Officer).
Great fun if your ISP goes kaplonk 2 days before the return is due.
In message , Dave Liquorice writes
As I am on a quarterly return and tend to do 12 months worth at a time, I have a nice stack of unused postage paid envelopes:-)
Or do you think they will have cancelled the business reply licence?
Before anyone asks, most farm business is zero rated so they usually owe me money.
regards
Or Mr Murphy Man comes along and hacks the phone cable into bits... I would hope that there are/will be provisions in place to handle such occurances. I guess you could go to the local library but I'd not want to use a public access machine for filing my VAT return or anything involving personal information.
Although they took a few goes to get it right... the first version of the web site was incompatible with their back end software apparently, so they used to print out the information you entered, and then re-key it into their existing software to do the calcs!
Can't you find some costs to incur? At least that way you can claim some back from them for a change ;-)
I have had some costs but I'm on the FRS... Which means I don't take those into account when calculating VAT. I just take 10.5% (the rate from my business sector) of gross income and send it to them.
So don't leave it until the last minute.
You don't have to pay by DD if you are filing online. I simply set a bank transfer up to pay on the 1st of the month that any VAT is due. If I am in credit the payment goes into my bank pretty quickly too.
On the other hand you do lose a few days despite what they say because they accept a cheque up to the deadline and then it still takes a few days to clear whereas the transfer has to be set 3 or 4 days ahead of the due date.
I know, I do the latter because it is more convenent, but not the former.
You could hold onto the funds for a few more days, electronic payments need to be received by the 7th IIRC.
You shouldn't loose if you pay on the 3rd/4th.
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