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Filing your taxes is one of the more irritating aspects of modern life, and this leads many people to rush through it at the last minute. But even those of us who are more careful sometimes make mistakes with our tax filings, and dealing with them immediately is the best possible option.

 

The most important thing to do if you discover a mistake on your taxes is to inform HMRC as soon as possible. If they review your tax filings and discover the mistake themselves, they'll probably penalise you for it. If they decide that you were maliciously and intentionally supplying them with false information, they might go so far as to apply the highest possible penalties.

 

It is always better to own up to your mistakes than to hope they won't notice! This might seem a bit counterintuitive at first, but it will save you money and legal trouble in the long run. HMRC understands that people do make mistakes, and they will look more favourably on mistakes that you identify because it removes the possibility that you were attempting to hide something.

 

If the mistake you found was a part of your most recent personal filing, you can simply resubmit your return (or have your accountant do so). You have one year from the filing date to correct any errors using this easy method, giving you up until 31 January 2019 to correct any mistakes for the 2017 tax filing made by 31 January 2018.

 

You can still correct mistakes from previous years if you miss the one year filing deadline. This requires writing to HMRC with a detailed explanation of what happened, why you underpaid or overpaid on your tax, and how much the discrepancy is. If you feel you overpaid on your tax, you only have four years from the filing date to claim a refund, and you will be required to supply additional details.

 

Fixing a corporate tax mistake follows a similar process to a personal filing. You have one year from the filing date to simply re-submit your corrected tax information. Unlike the personal filing, however, this date will change based on the date of your company's financial year-end. If you miss the one year correction window, you can still write HMRC and explain the situation, although you are not guaranteed to get a refund on overpayments.

 

 

Things get a bit more complicated if the mistake is part of a VAT filing. Instead of correcting the mistake as soon as you find it, you'll have to wait to the next quarter filing. Any mistake from the last 4 years under £10,000 can be corrected this way, but if it is above the £10,000 or from more than 4 years ago you'll have to file form VAT652 or write to the VAT Error Correction Team.