Help with your tax return

Have you done your tax return yet?

Fear not, Rosie Slosek of One Man Band Accounting can help.

In today’s guest post she explains how her new Toolkit gets your tax return done without trauma – but with cake!

Not only that, there’s also a special 20% discount for WfHW readers. Read on:

Hi Rosie, tax paperwork is a closed book to many home workers, so please give us a brief idea about what you do.
Hi Judy, I help self-employed home workers make their tax paperwork fun and easy, or at least as much as it’s ever going to be!

I believe in lots of little rewards and creating good associations so all those annoying bits of paper mean ‘Oooh, treats’ to your brain. Rather than ‘oh no, not that’ so you stress and put it off, making it worse.

That’s no fun at all and gets right in the way of growing your business. Coaching can make such a difference to getting both your business and personal money management in order, and it’s an essential skill for having a successful business. After all, us home workers need to be able to self-motivate!

What do you find are the biggest challenges home businesses face in getting their annual tax paperwork ready?
Fear and putting it off.

What inspired you to create The Self Assessment Tax Return Toolkit?
I saw so many one man band businesses working from home who were stressed out by their tax paperwork and put it off until it got really bad. That is such a stressful position to be in, and business is a learning curve enough without extra.

I knew I could help and there wasn’t anything else out there, so I wrote it! The Self Assessment Tax Return Toolkit is a step-by-step guide with lots of humour and mentions of cake, wine and shoes, with a sprinkling of tech (it even mentions Bitcoin).

What I wanted was to take someone from feeling unsure through what’s needed, with lots of explanations in normal English, how they can do the sections themselves, and what’s a good idea to get help with (since the tax return includes all income).

And yes, I had to include details of how to claim working from home expenses. I couldn’t face you, Judy, if I hadn’t!

How have people responded so far?
It’s been wonderful to have had such warming welcoming feedback, especially from people who have saved hundreds of pounds. That was brilliant, and just what I was hoping for.

I love the idea of a cake incentive – do you think it’s possible for freelancers and home businesses not to dread this time of year?
It’s such a pity to dread any time of year, we only have a limited amount of them after all. Pay attention to what is stressing you, what you can do to nurture yourself, what can you do to improve it.

If you’re up against a deadline and it’s really awful, take a moment to be in that feeling and remember it. That’s your cue to make changes once the deadline is over so it really doesn’t happen next time.

A lot of the stress is from not asking for help or having systems that don’t suit you (or not having one at all). We all need to do a tax return if we’re self-employed, and even if you have an accountant to do it for you, it’s you and only you who produces the paperwork for it to be done for you.

Cake is a good incentive as a looked forward to and worked for treat. Creating new associations that January or tax paperwork and money management means a little luxury can do wonders to creating a new ritual.

A ritual that means paperwork is a little time for yourself, for music, for a dance around the house (in pajamas if you like), for a cup of coffee, for those delicious but rather expensive chocolate truffles.

Start small and improve every year until it’s just a task that gets done in good-enough time.

Rosie runs One Man Band Accounting, helping one man bands with money management and doing their own tax returns. If you haven’t done your tax return yet, or want to get ahead for next year, have a look at The Self Assessment Tax Return Toolkit.

At £24.99 it’s a fun, easy and affordable way of getting the paperwork done with a sense of humour, rewards, lots of support, and cake.

Enter the code WORKFROMHOMEJAN14 to get the discounted price of £19.99. It’s good for getting your paperwork sorted to send to your accountant too!