LTT Tahu Tax Pulse: take your personal income tax's pulse

Hook

Boss, a question that touches your wallet directly: over the past five years, how much personal income tax have you paid in total? Nine people out of ten cannot answer. You file it, you forget it, the papers go into a drawer, goodbye. Today we introduce something different: taking your tax's pulse — LTT Tahu Tax Pulse.

What Tax Pulse is

What Tax Pulse does is simple: it takes your tax filings from the past five years, or even ten, and draws them out as a pulse line. For each year: how much income was declared, how much tax was paid, and which bracket you landed in. Draw the line and the story tells itself. Income is rising — is the tax rising faster? The business has grown — has the declared income kept up? That last one matters: as the first lesson said, the bank looks at the figures you declared. Declare too little and however well the business is doing, the loan conversation goes nowhere. Some people look at the line and realise the reliefs were never fully used, which means overpaying every year. Others find they moved up a bracket without noticing. LTT does this analysis for you free of charge.

Three self-service tools

Besides the pulse check, LTT has three tools you can use yourself. A personal income tax estimator — it walks you through the reliefs one by one: insurance, parents, children, books, sports equipment. Run it before you file and you will not miss anything you were entitled to. A PCB calculator — for those on a salary, is the PCB deducted on your payslip each month correct? And for bosses, is the amount you are deducting for your staff accurate? Key in the salary and you have the answer in a second. A payslip generator — the lesson before last was about the front of the business, and a proper-looking payslip is what your staff will need for a loan application or a visa. Generate it free and print it straight away. All three are at the two addresses shown, no registration needed; open them and use them.

Who most needs this

Three kinds of people most need a pulse check. Those on a salary — PCB comes out every month, so did you overpay by year end, and were the reliefs fully used? A lot of people leave a refund sitting there. Bosses — how you set your own salary, and whether you take a dividend or a salary, work out completely differently for tax. Decide on gut feel without looking at the numbers and you usually lose out. Anyone preparing to borrow — the bank wants to see the income you declared over the past few years. Start tidying it up now and in two years, when you go to talk about a loan, your pulse line will look good.

To close

Your tax assessments are not waste paper to be thrown out once filed. They are the health report on your finances. Dig out the past few years' assessments and send them to us, and we will draw your Tax Pulse line free of charge — or go to tahu.lttcfo.ai and play with the tools yourself first. Grab a coffee and talk about your tax. For the accounting, come to LTT. I am LTT, helping SME bosses get their accounts straight. Follow us, and see you next time.