Income tax puzzle

WatlingA5 · 15 February 2018 at 6:02PM

My annual (income) tax summary for 2016-17 contains an item "Other income (including interest)" with a figure of several hundred pounds. My income is pensions and they are all listed correctly. I have no other income and I've no investments that would require that much in tax - they're either ISAs - which are not taxable - or Premium Bonds.

The puzzle is that when I go on line to my tax account this "other" item is not shown, so I can't see where the money is supposed to have come from. However, a four-year old tax statement from 2013 shows exactly the same figure and description (I'm still looking for the other statements), so I may have been taxed on this since I retired.

I can go online to tell them my code is wrong, but since I don't know it is wrong I need to check the info.

I've be very grateful if someone can help me solve this puzzle since trying to figure out where to ask on the HMRC site is a nightmare... I thought I'd save time and ask here

agrinnall · 15 February 2018 at 6:56PM

Ring them up and speak to a person. I don't think anyone on here is going to be able to tell you what the item is.

WatlingA5 · 15 February 2018 at 7:49PM

Was actually looking for advice on where to look on the HMRC website, since I suspected I had just missed a link somewhere. You know the sort - when someone tells you where it is, you find you've been staring at it for the past hour

Thanks for the response, anyway :beer:

jimmo · 16 February 2018 at 1:11AM

The "Other Income (including interest)" was normally HMRC's estimate of interest received and, for those of us who do not complete annual tax Returns, is based on data gathered years ago and increased in line with inflation. Nowadays they have systems in place to gather accurate information from banks etc so, in theory at least, it should become more accurate.
In practical terms what really matters is what figures are included in your PAYE coding or form P800 if you get one. As long as the mysterious "Other Income" doesn't appear in Coding Notices, form P2 or the P800 you are not being taxed on it.

I think these Annual Tax Statements are complete political mumbo-jumbo imposed on HMRC by their political masters and a complete waste of time. Mine therefore finds it way to the bin pdq. If you are concerned you can, of course, phone HMRC. I might do that myself in the future but not until the "Other Income" figure starts to approach the Personal Savings Allowance (currently £1000 for basic rate payers).

agrinnall · 16 February 2018 at 9:12AM

WatlingA5 wrote: »

Was actually looking for advice on where to look on the HMRC website, since I suspected I had just missed a link somewhere. You know the sort - when someone tells you where it is, you find you've been staring at it for the past hour

Thanks for the response, anyway :beer:

As I say, ringing them up is more likely to get your answer than floundering around the website trying to find it for yourself. Two of us have now suggested that you phone them instead, but if that's what you want to do, that's up to you.

WatlingA5 · 16 February 2018 at 11:00AM

Thank you both.

Jimmo has confirmed a suspicion that I had dismissed as too cynical... In effect they (or the system) guess a figure and it's then up to me to check my paperwork. Now I know that, I will do that over the weekend and give them a call next week.

Edit: Actually, without the paper version, I would never have known about the 'Other income...' entry, so it seems it's worth continuing with the paper version.

Thanks again

jimmo · 16 February 2018 at 12:18PM

Its up to you, of course but all you can hope to achieve is to change a random meaningless figure into a more accurate meaningless figure.
You may find this thread from last year interesting.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5602528&highlight=annual+statement

Income tax puzzle

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