Form 11 - first tax return

Davysmith

Hello any guidance here would be appreciated.

I'm a PAYE employee and on 1/12/21 I set up a professional services firm as a sole trader and I continue as a PAYE employee while also working my own firm. I have had minimal fees received (about 2k) in the firm as the bulk of the work-in-progress gained over the past 12 months will not begin to pay until 2023/24.

I understand I have to file a tax return Form 11 and I went onto ROS and the form is one I'd rather an accountant fill out but I just don’t have spare cash at moment to pay an accountant. I will have to engage an accountant next year to prepare accounts for my professional body and submit next year’s return but for the moment I would like to try myself.

My question is as I have had minimal fees received this year - can I just fill out Form 12 instead which seems a lot more straightforward than Form 11?

Thank you.

Geuze

Yes, Form 12 is okay to use, as long as the extra non-PAYE income is less than 5,000.

Geuze

Read this:

https://www.revenue.ie/en/self-assessment-and-self-employment/guide-to-self-assessment/register-it-self-assessment.aspx

timetogo1

Maybe not of help to you. I paid an accountant last year for our (myself & my missus) Form 11. They charged me €600 for the pleasure and just seemed to copy / paste all of the numbers I'd given them to the Revenue site.

This year I went online, registered with ROS and did it myself. It took about 3 hours (as I wasn't sure what I was doing) but I had last years as a guide which was very helpful.

Your current PAYE info will be populated automatically.

The links I used for reference were

Medical insurance premiums (revenue.ie)

How to calculate allowable remote working costs (revenue.ie)

Dividend income (revenue.ie)

The ones you need might be different obviously. There's a section where you declare other income and then it adjusts accordingly. Once you enter everything it gives you a nice summary to save off and then submit to Revenue.

I saved off all the documents I have into a folder on my PC in case I'm ever audited.

After doing it myself I'll never use an accountant again for that (unless my incomes get more complicated), but now that I've done it once, doing it again doesn't seem like it'd take more than an hour. I had left it on the long finger as I was dreading it but it's nowhere near as hard as I was expecting.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119844856#Comment_119844856

Have seen plenty of people who have done a Form11 themselves and made an absolute mess of it also, so your experience is great but if he prefers professional advice that may be worth paying for.