In today’s digital landscape, maintaining compliance and ensuring efficient tax management is crucial for the success and sustainability of any business. Every business owner, whether operating as a sole trader, partnership, or limited company, should set up an HMRC Business Tax Account. With many services increasingly relying on digital and cloud-based communications with HMRC, it has become best practice for every business to sign up and be familiar with accessing their account through HMRC’s online service. This portal makes viewing your taxes and changing your business tax record with HMRC very easy.
If you don’t already have a Business Tax Account, we have outlined the process below that gives you step-by-step instructions on how to set one up.
Step-by-step guide to creating your Business Tax Account
- Registering for a Government Gateway ID
To create your own Business Tax Account, you will need to start by generating your government gateway ID by following these steps:
- Visit https://www.gov.uk/log-in-register-hmrc-online-services
- Click on the green ‘Sign In’ button
- Scroll down and select the ‘Create sign in details’ link
- Enter your email address. You will then be emailed a code to verify your email address, enter the digits after the dash onto the website.
- After entering the code online, enter your full name and you will then be asked to choose a password based upon the requirements. You may also be asked to set up a recovery password in case you forget your password.
- After this, you will be given your government gateway identifier. You should make note of this, however, an email should also be sent to confirm this for you.
Setting it up for business
After completing the steps above you’re almost finish setting up secure access for your Business Tax Account. Once you’ve completed the above steps, please click ‘Continue’.
Next, you will need to choose the type of account most suitable for you. You will need to select the “Organisation” option.
You will then need to set up additional security for your online account. Select the one that suits you best to finalise the account set-up.
- Linking your taxes to the Business Tax Account
Once you are all set up with secure access to your Business Tax Account you can connect it with your various tax accounts and there are two ways in which you can do this.
- ‘Get online access to a tax, duty or scheme’ from the homepage
- ‘Add a tax, duty or scheme to your account’ from the top ‘manager account’ menu.
- The tax accounts you can add, include:
When adding the various taxes to your HMRC Business Tax Account, you will need to select each tax type individually. For each tax, you will be prompted to enter specific information, such as your unique taxpayer reference (UTR) for Corporation Tax, your VAT registration number, and your PAYE reference numbers. This step-by-step process ensures that all relevant taxes are properly registered and linked to your account
Benefits of using an HMRC Business Tax Account
- Managing your taxes efficiently online
The account equips businesses with essential tools to manage tax obligations effectively. It provides detailed visibility into tax liabilities, including VAT, Corporation Tax, Income Tax, and National Insurance Contributions. This allows organisations to stay informed about their financial responsibilities and plan accordingly.
Navigating your HMRC Business Tax Account
- Features and functionalities of the Business Tax Account
A Business Tax Account enables secure online management of tax payments, offering options to track liabilities, make prompt payments, and set up payment plans as necessary. Additionally, businesses benefit from access to a variety of online resources such as educational materials, guidance documents, calculators and tools. These resources support businesses in understanding and efficiently fulfilling their tax requirements.
How HB&O can support you
At HB&O, we understand the challenges of staying on top of your taxes and offer expert guidance to help simplify the process for you. If you have any questions or need help setting up a Business Tax Account, please get in touch today and a member of the team will be able to guide you through the process.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 01926 422292
