I’m a full-time teacher. Going back about four years, I’ve done some extra tuition outside of my normal hours, which started out helping some colleagues' children, but, more recently, has become something somewhat bigger and regular. The majority of these payments have been made to me electronically, straight into my bank account and, as they’re often shaped around school terms, are generally very sporadic.
However, I recently had a chat with the accounts boss where I work about the issue of tax here. To be honest, I’d never really thought about it until the weekend, when I realised that the amount I’d made from it was quite substantial (probably around £6500 for a year). She advised me to make a voluntary disclosure to HMRC. No problem - I did this by phone at the start of the week, and outlined the general situation. They were delightful and helpful, and suggested that, in the future, I make monthly payments to help keep tax payments up to date. They said they’d send out form(s) for me to fill in that detailed my disclosure. So far, however, these forms haven’t arrived. She said I’d likely incur a £100 fine for non-disclosure of the last tax year (or something) and that there had actually been an anemsty for people who do private tution at the beginning of last year (which I obviously missed).
Here’s my problem. Up until perhaps 18 months ago, I have little idea of how many hours tuition I did. The only reason I have present logs is because of my old bank statements I can access online. A few students I saw just a handful of times; they were mainly in cash, and I never, ever kept a log. I have obviously never claimed for petrol expenses or anything like that. So…What do I do? Just give them a rough estimate? Also, should I factor in a rough estimate of what I thought my petrol expenses would be?
Secondly, these documents haven’t come yet: doesn’t bother me too much, but does HMRC do checks on an individual who’s made a voluntary disclosure before sending out these materials? Doesn’t bother me, but wondering why they’re taking so long to arrive!
Thanks!
However, I recently had a chat with the accounts boss where I work about the issue of tax here. To be honest, I’d never really thought about it until the weekend, when I realised that the amount I’d made from it was quite substantial (probably around £6500 for a year). She advised me to make a voluntary disclosure to HMRC. No problem - I did this by phone at the start of the week, and outlined the general situation. They were delightful and helpful, and suggested that, in the future, I make monthly payments to help keep tax payments up to date. They said they’d send out form(s) for me to fill in that detailed my disclosure. So far, however, these forms haven’t arrived. She said I’d likely incur a £100 fine for non-disclosure of the last tax year (or something) and that there had actually been an anemsty for people who do private tution at the beginning of last year (which I obviously missed).
Here’s my problem. Up until perhaps 18 months ago, I have little idea of how many hours tuition I did. The only reason I have present logs is because of my old bank statements I can access online. A few students I saw just a handful of times; they were mainly in cash, and I never, ever kept a log. I have obviously never claimed for petrol expenses or anything like that. So…What do I do? Just give them a rough estimate? Also, should I factor in a rough estimate of what I thought my petrol expenses would be?
Secondly, these documents haven’t come yet: doesn’t bother me too much, but does HMRC do checks on an individual who’s made a voluntary disclosure before sending out these materials? Doesn’t bother me, but wondering why they’re taking so long to arrive!
Thanks!
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