Don't panic...the deadline has not changed from the 31st January but there are advantages to filing your tax return early and we are not just talking about a "tax-stress" free Christmas!

If you file your tax return online by 30th December and the amount of tax you owe is less than £3,000, you can request to have the tax collected through your PAYE code (spread over the next year) rather than having to pay it as a lump sum by 31st January.

This could have considerable cash flow advantages especially if you are expecting a large credit card bill in January from all that Christmas spending!

You do need to already pay tax through PAYE and there are certain circumstances where you will not be eligible e.g. if you don't have enough PAYE income for HMRC to collect it.

Hurry though as us accountants are exceptionally busy at this time of year.

From the 6 April 2015 the marriage allowance allows for the transfer of £1,060 of a spouse's personal allowance to their partner.

The spouse transferring the additional allowance must be earning less than the personal allowance and the spouse receiving the allowance must not be paying higher rate tax.

If this is something that you can benefit from then you can register at:

www.gov.uk/marriage-allowance