Yay! It’s that time of the year again... 🙅

So last week we were advising you to chill out and give yourself a no-pressure start to the year. But OMG the Self Assessment tax return deadline is 3‌1 Ja‌nu‌ar‌y! Help!

For self-employed people, it always seems to creep up on us. It’s a relatively simple procedure but one that can put even the most organized among us in a tizz. So here’s a step-by-step guide to what you need to do:

• Understand if you actually need a tax return. It’s not only for the self-employed, you know. If you earn any extra money from a sideline such as Airbnb or selling things you make, you need to declare it to our friends at HMRC. And if you earn over 100k, even if you’re employed, you must fill out the Self Assessment forms too. You can use their online too here.

• First, get all your paperwork together. Payslips, accounts, expenses, and if you’re employed, your P60.

• Go online to G‌OV‌.U‌K, enter 'Self Assessment' in the search box, and start filling in your data.

• And don’t forget about your pension! This affects how you’re taxed too, with the government now encouraging saving for old age by giving us tax breaks on pension contributions. Most personal and workplace pensions are taxed at source, but for those in higher income tax brackets or if someone else pays in to your pension, you need to claim the tax benefits back yourself. If in doubt about this or any other aspect of your claim, like how much you can claim against your amenities bills for a home office…

• Call or Tweet HMRC @HMRCcustomers for help.

• Press SUBMIT! That’s the easy bit.

• Reward yourself with wine or chocolate (this is a very important step).

Now, if you’ve failed to do all the above steps apart from the last one, don’t worry too much. You’re not alone. In 2015, a whopping 890,000 people missed the deadline and ended up paying a fine of at least £100. There are a few acceptable excuses for not doing it (all the serious acts of god you’d imagine, not including “my husband ate it”) but for most of us, it only takes a couple of hours and getting it done on time will enable you to start the year infused with the warm glow of righteousness. And if you really can’t face this most grown-up of grown-up tasks, you can always pay an accountant to do it for you.

Photo by Damian Zaleski on Unsplash.