The process of paying tax in a business partnership can seem a bit long-winded because you’ll need to submit an individual tax return for your own income, as well as a Self Assessment return for the partnership as an entity.

If you’re a partner in a partnership and submit a paper-based Self Assessment form to HMRC, you’ll need to include an SA104 form to tell them about your share of the partnership’s income. Use an SA800 to submit a paper-based return for the partnership itself

There are two versions of the form:

• SA104S: Use the short version if you’re only declaring trading income from a partnership, or interest after tax from bank and building societies
• SA104F: Use the full version of the form if you need to include additional types of partnership income that you might receive

Each individual partner in a business partnership must submit their own Self Assessment tax return. You can do this online, but if you prefer to send a form in the post you should include the supplementary page SA104 Form along with your main tax return form.

You only need to complete an SA104 form if you submit your Self Assessment tax return by post. If you’re a partner in multiple businesses, you’ll need to complete a separate form for each partnership.
 

It’s the nominated partner’s responsibility to submit a Self Assessment return for the partnership itself. This should include the details of any profits, losses, or other gains and income.

The main partnership’s return also shows the distribution of profits and losses between the partners, and this information must match what you include on your own form.

The form is used to tell HMRC about your share of any profits or losses from the partnership, rather than about what happened to the actual partnership as an entity.

Partnerships are known as being ‘transparent’ because the entity itself doesn’t pay tax. Instead, HMRC ‘look through’ the partnership’s return to the partners, and then each partner pays tax on the income they receive.

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