Whilst looking for an answer to what I hope is a straightforward question I have found this great looking forum and thought I would pop in to ask the question and then stick around to hopefully help others.
Before I post question I think I ought to give brief intro, my name is Mike and I run my own bookkeeping business on the south coast (nr Brighton) and up until about Jan this year was doing ltd company books up to TB and since then I have been doinga few Sole Traders books and now preparing their self assessment returns.
My question is, I am just doing a SA return, on HMRC online, for a client who has made on account payments in Jan & July 2011 towards the tax due from his 2010/11 return. By using the HMRC system I had expected these on account payments to show on his return so showing what tax & class 4 NIC's he actually had to pay but they are not. Have I just missed where they should be entered or do they just get picked up when his statement is sent to him from HMRC.
As Nick says the payments on account dont show on the tax return showing what balance is outstanding. Common sense to include but then again in theory you could submit your 2011 tax return before the 2nd payment to accounts at the end of July is due. (so this may be why isnt set up that way)
You just need to do the tax return and calculate the tax and class 4 NIC due then deduct manually whatever payments on account have been made in Jan 2011 and July 2011 to work out what is due in Jan 2012.
Details of payments on account already made should be visible when you do the return online.
They used to be on there, or at least there was a place you could enter them, and they used to show up in the calc at the end. As everyone else says, you now have to look at their account separately and you should see the amounts of the payments in there so when you do your letter to the client you can advise the payments that still need to be made.
__________________
Jenny
Responses are my opinion based on the information provided. All information should be thoroughly checked before being relied on.
Many thanks for your replys, it is good to know that I have not missed the obvious.
Also, thanks Nick for the prompt to your website & blog about this subject. I have just printed it off so hopefully this will help. Loved the idea of calling your blog 'The Journal'
