SK Tax Service

Self Assessment

In these days of self-assessment the penalties for getting it wrong, or just plain late, are such that everyone needs a little help in settling their income tax affairs correctly. Even for those who feel that it is a relatively straightforward system find themselves, from time to time, out of their depth when dealing with the Inland Revenue. This is never more obvious than when your file has been selected for audit by the Inland Revenue. Not only that, but whilst you are away at sea and unable to deal with these matters, your loved ones at home are called upon to handle these matters for you.

Comprehensive Tax Advice

Do not despair, help is at hand in the form of SK Tax Service who will deal with these matters for you. Also, throughout the year you have access to their expertise to assist in ensuring that you receive all the advice required to enable you to qualify for the 100% deduction claim. Every member of staff has access to the central database that holds full details of your claim. By reading out the dates of entering and leaving the UK, these can be entered directly into the calculator of your claim and advice given immediately as to whether or not you have qualified, or what further time out of the UK may be necessary to enable so to do.

Unlimited Tax Advice

The emphasis is on a friendly personal approach rather than being formal, which seems to discourage some seafarers. Having said that, the service offered is extremely professional and has over the years, been able to claim back literally millions in income tax for our clients. Advice is readily available to all our clients by mail, phone, fax or e-mail so that all important guidance is always there to help you through the tricky parts of qualifying for a 100% claim. Now with the aid of our bulletin board even when you are away at sea you have access to our expertise by posting questions on the board that will be answered just as soon as Steve can be pried away from the bar of the Duke William!

Doing It Yourself?

We fully appreciate that, because of the amount of time that seafarers spend away from home, it is difficult to keep up to date with your tax affairs. This is even more important due to the introduction of self-assessment as penalties are now charged for being late with your tax return. We fully appreciate that a number of seafarers feel able to deal with their own tax affairs without the need of the services of a firm like ours. This is quite true and we would be the first to admit that it is perfectly possible to deal with these matters yourselves. However, it is also quite possible to service your own car or central heating system, but can you be totally confident that you have got it exactly right? The worst example we had of this was one client who enrolled with us because Cardiff had rejected his 100% claim.

When his dates were checked he had a perfectly viable claim but he had unfortunately taken a holiday in the middle of his sea service which broke the half rule when he returned to the UK after his holiday. Had he been a client of ours at the time we could have advised him not to take the holiday at that time, or advised when was the best time to take the holiday to fit in with his 100% claim. Therefore it is always best to make sure that you get the best advice available to assist you in ensuring that your claim runs through to a successful conclusion. As confident as we are of the service we offer, we realise that there can always be room for improvement. If any of our clients feel that the service can be improved upon they are more than welcome to share their thoughts with us.

Unbeatable Value

In order to receive details of how this service can benefit you, e-mail your name and address to us right away. Or even better fill out and return the necessary forms so we can get started.

Our fees for this service are currently £180 for the first twelve months and £170 for the second and subsequent years. These fees include a full review of your tax affairs and sea service for the last six years. Unlike a lot of other firms we do not charge for each tax return completed. Your fee covers all the work necessary to bring your tax affairs up to date and to keep them in order for the twelve months of enrolment. However we do reserve the right to re-assess the initial enrolment fee if the workload is more involved to the extent that a number of returns need to be submitted. Added to this is the fact that we will check your partners tax affairs without any extra charge. If it becomes necessary to deal with your partners tax office then a charge may be levied.

Also, please note our fee includes VAT, it is not added on as an extra. If a firm offers a fee of, for example, £180 and then states in small letters, plus vat, the actual fee is £211.50 !!

Paying us via the Internet

We can now accept your fee via the Internet rather than you having to send a cheque to us. However, this cannot be done via this website, it can only be done if you have the Internet facility with your Bank. Our bank account details are in the letter we send to you reminding you about your re-enrolment fee. If you do use this facility can you please ensure that you include your name and the first part of your post code (e.g. DN9) as a reference so that we can relate the payment to you?

E-mailing the Office

Whilst we are happy to receive e-mails from our Clients, some now seem to think that by e-mailing us they will receive a faster response from us. Please be advised that e-mails are treated in exactly the same way as normal mail that we receive; in that it is dealt with in the order in which we receive it. During our busy period between April and July our response time does drop dramatically due to the sheer volume of mail that comes in at this time. We deal with all correspondence as quickly as we are able but delays will occur during the busy period so do please bear with us.If you need re-assurance that an e-mail has been received you can set your message to automatically request a receipt; this way you can be assured that your message has been received by us. Also, could I ask that you take care when looking to send copies of documents attached to your e-mails. We are receiving some attachments that are over 9MB in size, and when you get four or five such attachments on one message the system is hanging up and takes an age to download. Can you please check before sending attachments that they are of a reasonable size to enable us to download and print these for you.

Working in the North Sea

When you are working in and around the UK, particularly in the North Sea area, you need to be aware that you have to be able to prove all the nights where you are outside the twelve mile limit at midnight. Some people are under the impression that a Discharge Book entry is sufficient for this purpose but I am afraid they couldn't be more wrong. Also, the Revenue have recently confirmed that the Water and Freeboard Notices are not acceptable as evidence of time outside the twelve mile limit. The problem with these notices is the fact that it only shows dates of departure from and return to a port. It does not confirm your time outside the twelve mile limit, which is the crucial detail. What you need to collect, for every period of service in and around the UK, is a statement, certified by the Captain or Chief Officer, confirming which dates are outside the twelve mile limit during the trip. A number of ships are now geared up to producing a monthly statement confirming the ships days inside and outside the twelve mile limit, which are ideal for confirming your sea service dates to verify your claim. Also, following the Pride South America decision, you need to obtain a statement confirming that the vessel has not undertaken a relevant purpose, in terms of exploration for or exploitation of oil or minerals, AND been stationed for in excess of 120 hours.

Submitting your tax return on time

You may be aware that the time limit for submitting a tax return is the 31 January following the previous 5 April. So this gives us some nine months to complete and submit the return for you. In order for us to be able to guarantee that your return can be submitted in time we ask that you send all the details for your return to us before Christmas. If the information is not made available to us by then we will do our utmost to submit your return in time, but we cannot guarantee that the return will be submitted on time.