Tax payers left to do it themselves

Each year we are bombarded with advertisements urging tax payers to get their self assessment tax returns in by the September the 30th. If we do so the Revenue promises to calculate our tax liability for us. MacIntyre Hudson points out that that’s not strictly true.

“While it is certainly beneficial to get your tax return in by the 30th September, the problem is that taxpayers receiving tax returns usually have more complicated tax affairs and the revenue assists with none of these more complicated calculations” said Marcel Grech Marguerat senior tax partner.

He continued “For example Capital Gains Tax and Taper relief are two of the most complicated areas of tax – but it is left completely up to the tax payer to calculate these figures. Likewise the self employed who have a particularly heavy burden get very little assistance with working out their figures.

“While you can ask the Revenue for help they are not obliged to tell you whether you could do things differently to pay less tax and their view of how tax should be calculated is not always correct as evidenced by the volumes of tax cases over the years. My suggestion would be that instead of spending thousands on television advertising the money could be better spent on simplifying the self assessment system.”