For individuals in the UK, you are currently required to file your personal paper tax return by 31 October each year.  If, like many people you use the internet to file your return, then you have until 31 January.

Should you file your paper return after 31 October or your online return after 31 January you will automatically be fined £100.

However, if you do not owe any tax then your penalty will be reduced down to £NIL.  Or if you tax liability is say only £50 then the maximum your late filing penalty can be is £50.

Also, if you have a reasonable excuse (it has to be pretty good though) then it is worth attempting to appeal against any penalty in writing.  This should be done as soon as you receive the penalty.

 If you are late paying your Income Tax liability then you will be charged interest on the late amount and for very late payments you will also be charged a surcharge based on the amount of tax owed and how late the payment is.

To create a new nominal code on Sage, firstly you need to select the ‘Company’ module.  This can normally be found on the left hand side, under ‘links’.

 Once you have the ‘nominal ledger’ screen in front of you, select the ‘new’ button at the top left hand corner of the list.

You will then open the set up ‘wizard’.  This wizard will then guide you through the set up process.  You will have to decide the type of code you require, whether it is a new sales code or maybe an expense code.

 If you are using the ‘Profit & Loss’ function of Sage to extract monthly or quarterly profit figures you will need to ensure that this report includes the new nominal code you have created.  To do this, go to ‘COA’ (Chart of Accounts).  This button is found along the same list as the ‘new’ button earlier.

Select the chart of accounts you normally use, then click ‘check’.  This will then highlight any nominal codes in Sage that are not currently included in your Profit and Loss account report. 

 The COA is a way of grouping different types of income and expenditure and letting Sage know which code should go where.

Why is completeness important?  Well the reports would be inaccurate if any of the nominal codes we omitted and the figures become useless!