[foxydon]

hi everyone
i am a self employed sole trader and have been for a few years now.business is booming, so in april of this year me and my husband decided for him to come out of work and us form a partnership

on ringing the tax office i was told to simply send them a letter and a partership number would be sent to us.
however 4 letters later, 7 months later, endless phone calls and even a trip my tax office to be told to go home and ring again and still not sorted.

my dilemma here is when next april comes round we are going to be unable to complete our tax returns cos of this.

has anyone got any advice on were i go from here.
simply cannot believe how something so simply can turn into such a nightmare

[andyofborg]

if your forming a limited liability partnership then its companies house that deals with their formation.

you should talk to your accountant because it may be better for you to work through a limited company

[ChrisTodd]

Unfortunately this is a very common problem with HMRC.

What I do in such circumstances is to complete a partnership tax return and the individual tax returns as partners.

Obviously you cannot submit the partnership return with is proper tax reference number, but I just put on the covering letter that we have tried to obtain the tax reference number, but so far one hasn't been issued.

What this does mean is that you will have to file the tax returns by post as you can't file online. So you will have to complete the returns by 31 October next year.

But once you submit the returns the Revenue will issue a tax reference number.

The only other thing you can do is to carry on writing and telephoning them and eventually someone will act upon your correspondence.

[foxydon]

thanks chris i will keep trying and if no luck then ill take your advice. cheers

[Thorpes]

You should register your husband's self employed (via the partnership) using the following form. This should result in your husband and the partnership being issued a tax number.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/cwf1.pdf

If you have not been issued a tax number or for any other reason, you cannot file your tax return online you can file a paper return up to 31 January 2010 without incurring a penalty if you send in a covering letter with your return with your reasonable excuse.

[foxydon]

already done this. he has been registered self employed since last appril but still no partership number

[foxydon]

got it sorted. what a laugh. finally got through to someone that seems to know what day it was and she told me its already sorted and has been since june and its not policy to let you know this. what a shame that the endless phone calls i have made over last few months and no one beable to tell me this hahahahah. that sums up hmrc

[ChrisTodd]

Glad to hear everything is sorted.

At least you didn't end up with several numbers, which is what happened to one of our clients.