Where To Find Free & Affordable Tax Help
If you feel like the ducks above when your tax return comes round, don’t worry. There is a lot of affordable help for you out there, if you can’t afford a personal tax consultant. One of the best ways to get tax help without spending a penny is through free tax preparation services.
TaxAid offers a free helpline if you are on a low income (less than £20,000 a year), to ensure you are paying the right amount of tax. Just call during office hours on weekdays. There is also a helpline for voluntary advisors, to get help for clients.
Tax Help for Older People also offers free help, this time for people over 60 on incomes of less than £20,000 a year. It has over 420 volunteers and a national call centre, and can also help you to pay less tax, if you are on a pension. You can call them, or use their web enquiry form.
Contact the government website to check your tax code.
Low-Cost Paid Services
If you don’t qualify for free help, Tax Scouts offers affordable low-cost help for tax returns. It offers three services (depending on type of company – dormant, active or VAT-registered).
And you are then directed to one of their accredited accountants, to file your tax return to HMRC in 48 hours. You can also use their fixed fee service to sort out tax problems. The site also offers free simple book-keeping tools.
England’s Tax System is Too Complicated!
Doing tax returns is very complicated, so much so that people even have to hire bookkeepers or accountants to fill everything in for them. This vegan accountancy firm has a lovely suite of pages of plain-English help.
England seems to have mastered the art of the most complicated tax system in the world:
- Income Tax
- VAT (valued added tax) – different for hot and cold food, and clothes for children and adults
- National Insurance (looks like a tax)
- Capital Gains Tax
- Inheritance Tax
- Council Tax
- Stamp Duty
One wonders if this is an example of what the later writer David Graeber called out – making things complicated in order to create ‘bullshit jobs’ that are not really needed. But skews job figures, and gives work to friends and colleagues.
Most people can spend hours to file a single return, when they could be spending that time running or improving a business. Other people fear earning above a certain amount, fear making mistakes or put off tasks, thinking the wrong information could lead to penalties and fines.
Tax changes means we all have to start learning all over again, and this in turn can affect whether people employ staff. People may miss out on claiming benefits due to tax laws, and carers also often don’t realise they are entitled to financial help, even if they work part-time. A café owner spends evenings on VAT, rather than menus and suppliers.
The obvious solution is rip up the rule book, and start again. Merging income tax bands and combining different taxes, would be a lot easier. Abroad, some countries use a flat tax, where everyone pays the same rate. It’s popular, simple and avoids tax dodging.
Estonia (a country with beautiful forests) pays a flat rate tax of 20%, and is a highly-developed country and enjoys the world’s 12th best standard of living (safe, good public transport, low pollution and excellent healthcare and broadband). The cost of living is also lower than most western European countries.
Should Some People Pay Higher Rates of Tax?
England’s tax laws are so complicated, that help is often needed. Some are in favour of a flat tax (used in Estonia at a rate of 20%, which seems to work as the country has an excellent standard of living, and a good economy).
In England, it’s a barmy country where people (and publicans) have to pay a huge beer tax (which makes it difficult for independent pubs to survive). Yet Tax Justice writes that both King Charles IIII and his son Prince William don’t have to pay corporation tax on their Duchies of Cornwall or Lancaster, which bring them billions of pounds in income (the Prince pays voluntary income tax, but why is not compulsory?)
The argument given by monarchists is always that the tourism income outweighs what the government pays it (one of the highest percentages of any monarchy worldwide). But the figures don’t add up.
Because the Duchy of Cornwall (owned by Prince William) and the Duchy of Lancaster (owned by King Charles III) both earn billions in income (everything from organic food and properties to renting out land for NHS ambulances).
The Duchy of Cornwall is vast (even including the Scilly Isles and the Oval Cricket Ground). It also includes most of Dartmoor National Park (environmental campaigners have asked for more than the ‘small potatoes’ offering for rewilding), despite the land being owned by one of the richest families on earth.
So when you figure in this vast amount of combined income, you can understand why (when we have so many financial problems), campaigners want both Duchies to pay corporation tax. They don’t, simply due to an archaic rule that these estates were for providing private income to the Monarch and heir.
And unlike the rest of us that have to make a simple legally-binding Will which is then subject to inheritance tax, the Monarchy doesn’t pay that either.
How Tax Evasion Abroad Harms England
The media and politicians are always on about benefit cheats. But in fact, many vulnerable people should claim benefits, and there is far more money ‘lost in the system’ from tax evasion. Big companies often employ tax companies and lawyers to get out of paying tax (so for instance, benefit from the NHS but contribute nothing towards it).
But when high earners (including companies) move their income or assets into low tax zones (or tax havens like Monaco), home countries have less income. The Tax Justice Network estimates governments lose hundreds of billions each year to tax evasion worldwide.
Which Countries Pay Higher Taxes?
Finnish grizzly bear! (Melanie Mikecz)
Interestingly, the happiest ones! Finland pays the world’s highest rate of income tax at around 57.3% (time of writing). So why in a freezing cold winter country that’s dark during the day and a country that takes a lot of their money, are people happier than in England?
There are many lessons to learn here. Like Denmark, people trust their governments, so are happy for the government to take tax, knowing it will be spent on looking after each other. Plus people are protected from cradle to grave by the state (Finland is the first country about to hit ‘zero homelessness’, due to non-profit landlords and good public policies).
There is no monarchy in Finland (it was tried once, but the King was prevented from taking the throne, before he came to power!) The Finnish President’s annual salary is around 160,000 Euros (he also gets to live in a palace!)
Other benefits from paying high taxes in Finland are universal health care, free higher education, and good leave for children and eldercare. When taxes are fair and well-spent, people don’t mind paying them.
As an example, Finnish speeding fines are linked to income. So if a premier footballer in Finland is found breaking the law by driving 200mph in a fast car, he will likely get fined some stupid amount linked to his stupidly high salary. It’s a much better deterrent.
