Free tax guide and expensive warning

Chartered Accountants HW Fisher & Company Ltd suggest that we pass on to you details of the tax guide for authors and freelance journalists that they have prepared. So here's the link. It gives details of the new penalties for persistently late filing of returns and of late penalties, among other things.

Remember that you now need to ask HMRC to send you a paper tax return form if you want one, as filing your tax return online has long been the default position. And it can take an astonishing three to four weeks for your blank paper tax return to arrive once you've ordered it by phone. Then you have to get your paper tax return in the post to arrive by 31 October. (The procedure is the same as for recent years: see www.londonfreelance.org/fl/1009tax2.html)

Or you could file your tax return online, with a later - and easier-to-remember - deadline of 31 January 2013 (31/1/13.)