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- HM Revenue & Customs

If you do your tax return online, the calculations will be done for you right away. You'll be told online when the HM Revenue & Customs has received your return.

What you'll need to get started:

Register at the Revenue & Customs web site. You'll be asked for some personal details, including your Unique Tax Reference number (UTR), your National Insurance number (NI) and/or your post code.

Then you'll get your own user ID and you'll be asked to choose a password. You'll need both of these every time you use the online service (if you've registered before, you simply use your old details).

You should then receive an activation PIN in the post. The Government Gateway will send this to you to ensure the security of your personal information.

Enter the PIN into the field provided on the Revenue & Customs registration page and you will immediately be taken to your own personal page. This will let you file online, make payments and view your statements.

A few things to remember

If you file online, you don't normally need to send in any documents separately (unless you are asked to at a later date).

The service is secure and confidential. If you don't finish filling in your form online, you can save it and come back to it later. You can also ask for help along the way.

If you need help

If you have any questions about filling in your tax return, you can call the online services help desk on (0845) 60 55 999, the line is open from 8am to 10pm Monday to Friday and 10am to 6pm Saturday and Sunday.

The deadline for getting the paper tax return to the Revenue & Customs so that it can calculate your tax for you is 30 September, but it's 31 January if you do it online.

Do it now and get it out of the way, it could save you a lot of hassle later.