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EnergyBuilders complete their tax forms late
Filed under: Tax
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Builders merchant and DIY superstore Wickes reckons almost a quarter (24%) of British tradesmen have missed an income tax deadline. And that rises to nearly a third of jobbing builders in London.Wickes reckons there is a "worrying proportion who don't know how to correctly fill in their self-assessment forms - or do not realise the importance of doing so". Fines – that's what.
Repercussions
Wickes director, Rob Murray, said: "The repercussions of missing the income tax deadline can have a significant financial impact for tradesmen who work for themselves or own their own companies, as they run the risk of being fined."In this tough economic climate, it's more important than ever that those who work in this vital industry are given the help and guidance they need to ensure this doesn't happen to them."
And a builder having to pay fines is a builder not spending money in Wickes, so the firm has added details of the self-assessment requirement on its Wickes Trade Builder website. It also includes info on the dreaded and complex VAT, the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) and disposing of building site waste management.
Five biggest taxpayer stings
- 1. HMRC vs Vodafone<p> Most recently HM Revenue & Customs let Vodafone off the hook - for quite a sum. Vodafone paid out just £1.25 billion despite an original tax bill being closer to £8 billion (HMRC has always refused to reveal how much it thought the Vodafone final bill was). The episode was made even more shaming and painful because Vodafone was given several years to come good with the cash owed - even though it was sitting on a substantial cash pile at the time.</p>
- 2. HMRC vs Goldman Sachs<p> The Exchequer is estimated to have lost around £10 million to Goldman Sachs recently through an 'error' made by HMRC. The episode relates to an employee benefit trust run by Goldman allowing employees to take non-repayable loans that had no National Insurance contributions tied to them. HMRC <em>did</em> claw back the full amount from more than 20 businesses - but not Goldman. HMRC remains cagey about the details of the deal. Little HMRC accountability or transparency.</p>
- 3. Taxpayer vs Carlyle Group - QinetiQ<p> Huge problems with QinetiQ, the former Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, or DERA. A lack of clarity on contractual arrangements at the outset didn't help, allowing private equity company Carlyle to hammer the price down (why would you start negotiations when you didn't know the company's true value?). The Ministry of Defence behaved, it was said, like "an innocent at a table of card-sharps". Estimated cost to the taxpayer - £90 million. Huge sums were later made by QinetiQ management when the company listed.</p>
- 4. Taxpayer vs NHS Management<p> The TaxPayers' Alliances estimates £2.7bn worth of taxpayer cash was wasted with a super-expensive 'National Programme for IT in the NHS'. The Department of Health, in the end, had very little to show for it as a consequence. Another example of poor management and a seemingly ingrained inability to provide taxpayers' with value for money.</p> <p> <br /> "BT is paid £9 million to implement systems at each NHS site, even though the same systems have been purchased for under £2 million by NHS organisations outside the Programme", the Commons Public Accounts Committee noted.</p>
- 5. Taxpayer vs public sector productivity<p> Contentious. The Office for National Statistics estimated this has declined 3.4% since 1997, "with inputs increasing by 38%." The Centre for Economics and Business Research estimate that this inefficiency costs the taxpayer £58.4 billion a year.</p> <p> Given the above record, are there any deals that the taxpayer has actually won out on? Not many, but the one successful project was the roll out of new Jobcentre Plus offices. It came in £314 million under budget, claims the Taxpayers' Alliance. A small cheer.</p>
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
In the Wickes survey, the highest proportion of tradesmen who admitted to missing an income tax deadline are based in London, with nearly a third (32%) having been penalised for getting their self-assessment forms in late.The North East of England saw the second highest percentage (27%) of tradesmen failing to meet the deadline whilst the lowest figures came from the Midlands and Wales, with just 18% and 20% respectively claiming to have made this mistake.
Some 21% of tradesmen in both North and South West England have also been late in returning their forms, and almost a quarter (24%) of Scots have returned their forms after the deadline.
Countdown
Of those respondents who said they'd missed a deadline for their income tax forms, 32% said it was because they had forgotten the date, more than one in 10 (11%) said they didn't know how to complete one and 36% said they had been simply 'too busy'.In addition, 35% of tradesmen who have never submitted an income tax return online didn't know that you could do so.
Wickes Trade Builder currently features a 'live-time' countdown clock to the final date for online tax submissions in order to flag the impending deadline.
