Tax return time!

[Twiggy]

Yes you can claim certain expenses for equipment or stock from before you register as self employed. Rather than an accountant, I would just contact the HMRC to ask if need be but there is plenty of advice online.

To my knowledge, a sole trader counts money in and money out - they don't have a balance sheet as a company does which would show accruals, depreciation of capital and so on.

 

[sillymoo]

Hello

How does everyone record earnings from surveys on their tax return: on the date the survey was taken or when the money was actually received?

My thinking was that with surveys like OnePoll which have a high payment threshold you should record the income in the tax year in which the payment was received. However, I've recently joined Prolific and I'm not sure how to deal with income from them as their threshold is a lot lower. I'm sitting on over £20 balance there and wondering if it should be declared as income now or only after I cash it.

Thanks

 

[Jon]

are these companies actually paying you with cash or are they paying you with points which you can convert to anything but you choose to be cash

 

[Falanouc]

When you fill in your tax return it asks if you are doing it on a cash received basis or not - if yes, it's the date you received the money.

https://www.gov.uk/simpler-income-tax-cash-basis/overview

 

[sillymoo]

Prolific Academic that I mentioned awards cash not points. The cash adds up in the account and you can cash out when you reach a £5 threshold but at any given time you can see your balance in the account showing as cash earned.

Most of the other companies award points that can be turned into cash or into vouchers so my understanding is you only declare on the tax return after you got the cash/voucher as until then you only have points.

 

[sillymoo]

When you fill in your tax return it asks if you are doing it on a cash received basis or not - if yes, it's the date you received the money.

https://www.gov.uk/simpler-income-tax-cash-basis/overview

[member=3120]Falanouc[/member] the thing is that with Prolific you receive cash when you do each survey although it's added to your Prolific account rather than getting paid into your bank.

 

[Falanouc]

Unless it's in your bank though it's not yours. The site could close down tomorrow and you then wouldn't have the money... that's the way I look at it anyway

 

[sillymoo]

[member=3120]Falanouc[/member] thanks, I never thought of that before!

 

[katykicker]

You declare it when you receive the money.

Also, it is irrelevant about points for cash or anything else, if you receive money from somewhere, or vouchers, in exchange for work such as completing surveys, it should be declared.

 

[Steve1912]

I've come late to the Swagbucks party and started to earn this month. It's just occurred to me that the ways of earning Swagbucks are so diverse, I'm not sure whether I should declare the income in my tax return.

I'd say 'yes' for doing surveys. This is similar work to YouGov, for which I had no hesitation in declaring the £50 I was paid for doing those. However, I've also earned Swagbucks for buying products. This is like getting cashback from Quidco and that definitely isn't classed as taxable income. Getting Swagbucks while doing web searches, trying apps and watching videos also doesn't seem like stuff I should declare either.

What do other people do?

 

[islamacd]

would you only need to do a tax return if you get a significant amount of money?
am i right in saying if you just put it into vouchers then you wouldn't need to put it in a tax return?

 

[Falanouc]

[member=6811]islamacd[/member] Any money you earn online has to be declared - if your income is very low then you just won't pay any tax. Self Assessments are not as daunting as they seem!

I count vouchers as earnings in mine.

 

[katykicker]

As [member=3120]Falanouc[/member] says you should be counting ALL income. Vouchers or otherwise. I get several thousand pound of vouchers per year and pay tax on those by declaring them on my return.

 

[RickyRaj]

Finally got round to doing my 2016/2017 tax return on Saturday morning. Took about an hour.

 

[pauleen]

I really need to do mine i'm ok once i've started, I just hate doing it

 

[Knopfler]

Hi, I'm just about to fill in my first self-assessment and wanting to get everything sorted before I start.

First off, if I get stuck with it - can I go back to it later or do I have to fill it all in, in one go?

I do online surveys mainly and am not sure how to work out the expenses. I can be on my computer for around 3 to 5 hours per day on average. This is for general surfing, mb'ing and doing surveys etc.

Obviously I am not working solidly on one thing for all this time but a lot of it can be spent trying to find, or waiting for (e.g. Prolific) surveys to crop up as well as checking my emails and various accounts for them, applying to Appen etc.

The HMRC website shows that I can use 'simplified expenses' for 25 + hours per month - and would get a flat rate of £10 for working from home.
This does not include broadband costs though and I'm not sure how to work this out.

Do I need to show receipts of utility and broadband bills? I do not have a paper trail for these as they are online accounts?

Hoping someone can help, please

 

[Jon]

Hi @Knopfler

With my tax return I literally put in the amounts of money I have earned In TOTAL

All they care about his the big number at the end, they don't care what actually makes up that total

Yes you can start and stop your tax return as often as you want while you fill it up.

 

[Knopfler]

Thanks @Jon. It's not the amount (small pittance really, ha ha!) that I've earned but how to claim for my expenses in working from home.

Good to know that I can 'stop and start it though. Will get on it this evening, thanks

 

[Andrew]

Thanks @Jon. It's not the amount (small pittance really, ha ha!) that I've earned but how to claim for my expenses in working from home.

Good to know that I can 'stop and start it though. Will get on it this evening, thanks

If you're just doing online surveys you don't need to tell them. Cos the survey sites pay as points rather than cash (although you can of course convert some of those points into pounds) HMRC told me not to bother putting them down. It also means though that if one of the survey firms goes bust and you have a large amount of unclaimed points with them you're not legally regarded as a creditor and so can't make a claim against them. So always cash out your points as soon as you can! Think it might be different for panel base which does pay in hard cash to your bank account. Cant remember if declare earnings from that site or not without checking my paperwork. But panekbase should be able to clarify. Definitely don't declare any amazon vouchers or the like that you get. These are regarded as a gift.

 

[Andrew]

From memory what I do declare is earnings from roamler, task 360 and the like as well as any mystery shopping earning I get. I offset this against mileage and working from home costs. Also include other costs like buying new printer cartridges, paper etc.