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The January 31st deadline for filing your landlord tax returns online is fast approaching. If you have any rental income from properties let in the tax year ending April 2014, now is the time to declare it or face a hefty fine from HMRC. If you have made any losses, perhaps as a result of lengthy void periods or extensive renovations, you can carry your losses forward and offset them against any future profits you make. But what happens if you haven’t even thought about filing a tax return and you are not registered for online filing?
Online Activation Code
In order to file a tax return online, you will need to register and wait for HMRC to send you an activation code. This takes about 10 days to arrive, so if you leave it too late, you better have a really good excuse or you will be charged a late filing penalty.
A Poor Excuse
Speaking of excuses…HMRC has revealed some imaginative excuses used in unsuccessful appeals against late filing penalties. The top five are:
• My pet ate my tax return and all the subsequent reminders…
• I’ve been travelling the world trying to escape from a foreign intelligence agency…
• I have been up a Welsh mountain with no internet access or a post box nearby…
• I’ve been very busy looking after some escaped parrots and a few fox cubs…
• My work colleague borrowed my tax return to photocopy it, but didn’t give it back…
If you don’t want to end up being fined, we suggest you get your skates on and start preparing your tax return!
