Income self-assessment form - how was it for you?

Income self-assessment form - how was it for you?

23:09 – the time I submitted my elderly Polish neighbour’s self-assessment tax return on Tuesday 31^st January – 51 minutes before the official deadline. You might think a retired, single gentleman with relatively straightforward financial affairs would be the last person left scrabbling around and panicking about getting it in before the deadline. Surely he could have sorted it all out months ago? Well, easier said than done.

I’m sure for a lot of people, filling in online forms are a familiar pre-requisite of modern living. But for someone who’s more used to a typewriter than a keyboard and whose filing system consists of little heaps of paper all over the dining room table, in plastic carrier bags in the spare room and shoved in dresser drawers, the supposedly simple online tax return is a daunting prospect.

I offered to help thinking that, at the very least, I’d have no problem filling in the online form. I was fully prepared to wade my way through the piles of bank and pension statements, share dividend slips and notepad of slightly inaccurate calculations – but I have to admit when I finally got to the point where I had to fill in the form, even I was slightly flummoxed by some of the questions.

We managed it eventually but not without guessing the answers to a couple of the questions (if in doubt, just put ‘no’). The final figure we were presented with looked about what he’d paid in the past so I presume we got it right. I’m just thankful I’m not in the position yet where I have to complete a self-assessment form myself. The process has definitely made me think seriously about going through my own financial affairs and getting them in better order – just in case the time ever comes when it’s me scrabbling around on the 31^st January.

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