The Income Tax Return can become a headache if you are self-employed. It is not always easy to find the corresponding sections for each expense or income, and things get complicated if you carry out more than one economic activity.
Below we explain step by step how to make your Income Statement if you are self-employed. Our advice is that you do it as soon as possible , since if it comes out "to be returned", the Treasury makes the payments of the returns sent in the first days of the campaign quickly.
What do you need for the Self-Employed Income Declaration?
As for any other procedure in the Electronic Headquarters of the Tax Agency, you will need to identify yourself on the web. To do this, you must have a digital certificate, electronic DNI (and its corresponding reader) or a password from the PIN key system.
You should also have your 2018 returns and your spreadsheets or account books handy . These files are necessary for you to review the income, expenses and invoices that you are going to declare as self-employed.
Do not forget that you will also need your Income Statement from the previous year , or the information corresponding to box 475.
Have at hand all your accounts for the year 2018 (bills, expenses, etc.) to make your Income Statement as a self-employed person
Once you have all this information, access the Renta Web service, identify yourself and start the return.
1. Update your personal data
The first available section will show you your personal data: name and surname, address, and other important details such as the number of people in your charge (minor children, elderly people, etc.).
Review all your personal data well before continuing with the Income Statement
2. Check (without incorporating) the data of payers
As you have issued invoices throughout the year, the payments received from companies will appear at the beginning . The Treasury will ask you to transfer them to the work boxes, but you should only do it if that income has been as part of a contract (not as a freelancer).
For all payments received from companies and that you have billed as a freelancer, check the "Do not incorporate" box and press the "Accept" button to continue.
After this step, the form will show you an index-summary of all the sections of the Income Tax Return, and you can fill them in from section to section. In the top menu you can access "Personal data" at any time to make changes.
If you have everything ready to continue, click on "Continue with the declaration" .
3. Fill in the housing information and other personal information
If you have changed your tax address, you must notify it in these initial boxes. In addition, you are obliged to fill in your home information and the cadastral reference . And you must select the Autonomous Community or the Autonomous City where you have developed your professional activity during 2018.
In these steps you will also have to select if you want to make the individual Income Declaration, the joint or both . It is important that you consult your doubts in the Treasury or with a manager to know what type of declaration you should make if you are married and / or have minor children.
That is to say: in these sections we will include the data corresponding to the people in your charge (minors, relatives with disabilities, etc.).
4. Tax allocations and clarifications on the form
In the next section (boxes 105 and 106) you can select which organizations you want to contribute financially to. You can select the Catholic Church, NGOs or both .
Next, boxes will be displayed to indicate data of the legal representative (if applicable), as well as special boxes that you will have to mark if you are making a supplementary declaration or a request for rectification of a previous declaration.
5. Income from labor and movable capital
As we have already mentioned, “Earnings from work” must include income received from a work contract (not in the self-employed regime).
For its part, the "Income from movable capital" is usually automatically updated to include, among others, the interest you have received in your bank accounts .
Below (boxes 0061 and successive) there is space to indicate economic returns obtained from other activities. In this section you will have to include information if you are a homeowner that you are renting to third parties , for example.
6. Income from economic activities under direct estimation regime (for self-employed)
Most of the economic activities of the self-employed are grouped in this category, except in some cases such as agriculture or fishing. Let's review the different sections that you must fill out:
Type of activity carried out, indicative code and group or IAE heading
If you do not remember what the code of your economic activity is, it is time to review your self-employment registration papers. In the sections corresponding to the professional category, you will find the code that groups it and the exact password of your sector.
Also select the estimate that applies to you (normal or simplified) and confirm that the "Declarant" option is checked in box 0110 .
In addition, for each added economic activity you will have to select whether you are taxed under the general or simplified regime .
How to fill in your income
By clicking on the revenue edit icon, a pop-up box with several categories will open.
If you have simply billed for your services, you will only have to fill in box 0116. If you have made imports or have earned money with other activities, you can use boxes 0117 and so on .
It is very important that in these boxes you put the total amount, without VAT or income tax , corresponding to the income of that category in its corresponding box.
For example: if all the months of 2018 you have earned 1000 euros + VAT as invoicing of your services, you must write 12000 in box 095.
How do I declare the personal income tax that has been withheld from my invoices?
When filling in the details of your income and expenses, pay attention to the "Withholdings" box that appears in the pop-up windows. You must include there the sum of all personal income tax withheld in economic activity throughout the year .
Don't worry if you don't see the withholdings reflected immediately: the system adds them all up and displays them in another box later , "Withholdings and other payments on account for income from economic activities."
How to fill in your tax deductible expenses
All your deductible expenses will be filled by adding the amounts without VAT for the entire year 2018 , and also separated by categories:
It is important that you review your deductible expenses and separate them into categories
- Exploitation consumption . So that you easily understand what you can include in this section, think about all the material related to the development of your activity: a printer, a uniform, spare parts, etc. This section also includes raw and auxiliary materials and fuels for machinery.
- Social Security in charge of the company : in this section you must include the sum of all your payments to Social Security in 2018. To do this, add the self-employed quotas of the 12 months and all the payments corresponding to the Social Security of your employees.
- Wages and salaries : this section includes the expenses corresponding to the remuneration of your employees, as well as allowances, travel expenses or extraordinary payments.
- Other personnel expenses : this section groups together investments in training, accident insurance, gifts for employees, etc.
- Repairs and conservation . Group here all the necessary expenses for the maintenance of facilities and material.
- Independent professional services . This category includes payments to legal professionals, notaries, auditors, economists, mediators or independent commercials.
- Other outside services . This broad sector includes spending on transportation, research and development, advertising, office supplies (water, telephony, Internet, electricity, etc.) and banking services.
- Input VAT . This category only applies to expenses that cannot be deducted or managed with the quarterly VAT returns (model 303).
Once you have completed all these boxes, the Renta Web system will automatically calculate the net return of the activity . To do this, it will consider total income and total expenses and show the difference in box 0155.
How to register another economic activity?
If you work as a freelancer in several economic activities, you must make the declaration of income and expenses separately.
After filling in your main economic activity, click on the "Add activity" button in the upper left corner.
The procedure is the same as we have mentioned, with the same sections. Pay close attention to the division of the expenses of each activity, and especially be careful with payments to Social Security .
For example: if you have included your freelance fees in economic activity 1, you should not include them again in the second activity.
7. Income from economic activities in objective estimation
This is the section for special self-employed regimes . Here the data of agriculture and fishing professionals, among others, would be organized.
If you have questions about the conditions applicable to your economic activity, you can consult these instructions from the Treasury on objective estimation.
8. Other economic returns
In addition to income from interest on bank accounts, you also have to declare capital gains or those corresponding to real estate. For example, if you own an apartment and have rented it in 2018 , you will have to fill in all the boxes corresponding to this income.
In addition, the entire G2 section of the 2018 Income Statement is intended to indicate the gains derived from property transfers .
9. Deductions
In these boxes, all the available options for deductible expenses will appear : aid to NGOs, donations, union dues, maternity, adoption of a child, rental aid (in very specific cases), etc.
10. Automatic calculations of income and deductions
In the following steps of the Income Statement, you will find many boxes that are completed automatically. In them appears information on the minimum values of rent and fees corresponding to the State and your Autonomous Community .
Renta Web also automatically calculates the liquid bases, the tax bases of the savings and the minimum contribution according to your work and family situation.
Let the system automatically fill in this information and go directly to the "Deductions" sections .
11. Last steps, help and checks
This year's Self-Employed Income campaign is carried out exclusively through the Renta Web service.
In addition to the deductions for the particular cases that we have just mentioned, each Autonomous Community also offers special aid .
Using the help menu of Renta Web (question mark button on the menu) you can check these deductions and include in the form those to which you are entitled.
Everything is ready to send the Income Statement. If it has come out "to return", make sure you correctly enter the IBAN code of your bank account. If it has come out "to enter", select the payment method you prefer.
Finally, you must fill in the city and the date of the declaration. Before submitting, be sure to use the "Validate" tool from the top menu . With this button, the system will automatically check doubtful or erroneous boxes and display prompts for you to solve the problems.