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The different ways you can file your tax return online

You can use the free HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) Self Assessment service to send your tax return online or you can buy commercial software. In some cases you may have to use commercial software, as the free HMRC service doesn’t cover all of the online forms.

What's covered by the HMRC free online service

You can send your main Self Assessment Tax Return (SA100) online free of charge using the HMRC Self Assessment service. You can also use this service to send information about the following income and gains - to support your tax return:

  • employment
  • self-employment
  • partnership - to report the income you receive as a partner
  • UK property
  • Capital Gains
  • foreign

The free HMRC Self Assessment service only covers the icome and gains listed above.

You can use commercial software to send other tax returns and supporting information online. For example if you're sending a Trust and Estates Tax Return or a Partnership Return you'll need to use commercial software.

You need to have signed up for HMRC Online Services before you can use commerical software to send your return online.

What's covered by commercial software

You can send the following tax returns online using software you can buy from commercial suppliers:

  • SA100 - Individual Tax Return (for individuals - including those who are self-employed)
  • SA800 - Partnership Tax Return
  • SA900 - Trust and Estate Tax Return

The commercial software products also allow you to send some or all of the following pages online - these support your personal tax return (SA100):

  • employment
  • self-employment
  • partnership - to report the income you receive as a partner
  • UK property
  • additional information
  • foreign income
  • Trust income
  • Capital Gains
  • non-residence
  • Minister of religion
  • Lloyd's underwriters

Follow the link below for a list of commercial software. Each software supplier has successfully demonstrated the ability to submit both the 2011-12 tax return and supplementary pages to HMRC.

HMRC doesn't recommend any one particular product or service over another, so you'll have to choose for yourself. When you compare suppliers, you could look at things such as their extra features, ease of use and quality of support.

You need to have signed up for HMRC Online Services before you can use commercial software to send your tax return online.

Tax returns you can't send online

There is currently no service or software available for sending the following returns online:

  • SA700 - Non-resident Company Tax Return
  • SA970 - Trustees of Registered Pension Schemes

There are also a few exceptional cases where you can’t send your personal return online.  This is because the additional pages you need to complete are not listed in the sections above and are not available online. See the sections above for the pages that are available.

You must send these as paper returns. Because you can't send them online, the deadline for these paper returns is the same as for online returns - 31 January.

Getting started with HMRC Online Services

Signing up for HMRC Online Services

You must sign up to use HMRC Online Services before you can send your tax return online for the first time. You'll need to do this whether you're using the free HMRC Self Assessment service or commercial software.

Key features of HMRC Online Services

You can use the HMRC Online Service to:

Filling in your return at your own pace

The HMRC free Self Assessment service saves your tax return securely as you work on it. You don't have to fill in your tax return all in one go. You can fill in part of it, save it and come back later. No one else can see it, not even HMRC, until you send it.  You can also print it out if you want to.

If you use commercial software, you may be able to save your work on your own computer. If this feature is important to you, check that it's available before you choose your software.

Support for HMRC Online Services

You can get help with using the free HMRC Self Assessment service from the Online Services Helpdesk. They won't be able to help with software from commercial suppliers.

More useful links

See also...

 

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