Common Tax Myths Busted!

Everyone pays income tax, and it’s never fun seeing your money go out of your account for nothing. Employed people get their earnings taxed for them already, while self-employed people have to file tax returns. This piece is all about tax myths you might hear when filing a tax return.

You Need An Accountant To File A Return

It’s a common misconception that you need an accountant to file a tax return. Either that or people think you need someone to do it for you. This isn’t the case, you can easily file your own tax return. There are many ways you can do this, some prefer to do it all online, while others like getting the paper forms and filling them in. Regardless, you just go to the relevant page on the government website and find the forms you need to fill in or print out. You’ll have to create an account too and can always find advice on how to fill in the forms properly by looking online. But no, you don’t need someone else to file your income tax return for you. The reason people do get accountants to do it is that they can help you save as much money as possible when paying tax as they know all the secrets.

You Can’t Make Any Changes Once You’ve Submitted A Return

If you make any mistakes with your tax return, then you might be extremely worried. It’s already been sent off, and that means you can’t make the changes and will end up paying the wrong amount of tax. Well, you don’t need to worry as you can actually make changes to your tax return within 12 months of sending it off. So, if you find an invoice that slipped your gaze when you filed it, you can add the amount you got paid to your return and won’t risk getting penalized for paying too little tax. Likewise, you can get tax rebates if you find out that you originally paid too much on your return. Make the change to the figure within a year, and you can get your money returned to you and claim a little tax rebate. Similarly, if you’re unsure if you paid too much then there are loads of companies like Tax Returned that can help you see if you did. All things considered, to sum up; yes, you can make changes once you’ve submitted a return. But, you can only make them within a year of you sending the original form off.

You Pay Tax On All Your Income

The biggest myth out there is that you have to pay tax on all of your income. So, every penny you earn gets taxed, right? This isn’t strictly the case as there is a minimum amount you have to earn before you start getting taxed. So, if you earn less than it, you won’t have to pay tax on your earnings. This means a lot of people that work part-time jobs can get away without paying tax if they earn less than the minimum amount. Plus, you can claim expenses too, which provide you with a bit of tax relief and drives the tax you pay down even further. Also, you only pay tax on income that’s gone into your bank account. So, if you get paid in cash, you might not have to pay tax if you don’t deposit it into your account as there’s no evidence of income.
With these myths busted, you should approach tax returns with more clarity and feel less scared about them.