Your Government Gateway Account is also known as your Business Tax Account and it is an essential for any business to be able to operate in digital times.
Having access to your taxes will reduce your stress and inefficiency and help your bookkeeper to help you with HMRC issues.
Top Tips
- If you have more than one business, create a separate government gateway account for each business so each businesses details are in one place.
- Add and activate all taxes you have registered for to your government gateway account.
- Your Business Tax account is separate to your Personal Tax Account and you need both – one as a Business Owner and one as an Individual.
Create a Government Gateway Account – Step 1
To register for HMRC Online services and to set up an account:
- Go to the HMRC login page. to register
- Click the GREEN sign in button.
- Click “Create sign in details” (small print under the Green Box).
- Enter your business email address.
- You will now be emailed a confirmation code. Use this code to confirm your email address.
- You will be issued with a User ID for your government gateway account.Top Tip
- Print this page to PDF and file it somewhere safe, print it out and put it somewhere safe, photograph or scan it to your phone or device. If you lose these credentials life will become very difficult for you ☹
How to Add Taxes to your account – Step 2
Once the Government Gateway Account is opened you need to Add Taxes to it one by one. Keep going until every tax is visible (it can take from 15 minutes to 72 hours to surface a tax).
Top Tip – You can only add a Tax that you have already registered for, or you can register for a new tax.
The main taxes you can add are;
- Corporation Tax
- PAYE for Employers
- VAT
- VAT EC Sales List – as long as this is required
To add a tax you will need to do the following:
- From the business tax summary page, click “get online access to a tax, duty or scheme”
- Select the tax that you want to add.
- Click the GREEN continue button.
- Each tax will require specific information relating to that tax (UTR for Corp Tax, VAT certificate and last VAT return filed box 5 figure, PAYE numbers for PAYE) so ensure that you have that info to hand.
- After you have added the tax HMRC will then post an activation code to your registered office address, or for some taxes they will activate without a code (due to Coronavirus restrictions).
- If a postal activation code is sent by HMRC letter input this into the account and the tax will be added onto the account.
- In Coronavirus times HMRC are activating taxes faster but traditionally you can wait up to 72 hours for a tax to be visible. Our experience is that this is faster nowadays.
So What?
The digital tax world is fast changing and access is improving weekly. Now you have an online Business Tax Account some of the things you can do are;
- See your tax liabilities and deadlines
- Pay your Taxes
- Get your VAT certificate
- Register for a new tax when you need to
- Web Chat / message HMRC with queries
As a small business owner you’ll find that knowledge is power and knowing what to pay and when to pay will give you improved control, a closeness to your numbers and the ability to make informed cash flow decisions – like save the tax for when you have to pay it.