I will return

Tax returns

From tax year 2009-10 onwards all employers will have to file their tax returns on-line, and no rebate is available for doing so as in earlier years. Further information can be found on the HMRC website.

Company House returns

If your charity is also a registered Company, you can save money by filing your annual return on-line. It costs £15 to file on-line as opposed to £30 for completing the paper form manually. Filing on-line also saves postage - especially after the new postage rates came into force.

The Charity Commission is requiring charities to file their annual return on-line. We filed ours this year, and it turned out to be very easy. They even asked us to upload a copy of our accounts. And here's the rub: don't forget that once you've submitted your accounts they are available for all and sundry to see on the Charity Commission website. If they bear the signatures of your treasurer or chair, there's a possibility that those signatures can be downloaded by unscrupulous persons and used for fraudulent purposes. I therefore suggest that you either submit a copy of your accounts with the signatures blanked out; or do what I did. I sent a copy with computer-generated signatures using one of the pseudo-handwriting fonts from MS-Word. If possible, upload your accounts in pdf format to prevent tampering of figures. If you need a free pdf creator, click here.