Personal Savings Allowance guide

Over62

Can I just remind everyone that a tax year, which ends on 5 April, is not the same as a financial year, which ends on 31 March. The terms are not interchangeable.

polymaff

Wot, only 44

Consumerist

Over62 wrote: »

Can I just remind everyone that a tax year, which ends on 5 April, is not the same as a financial year, which ends on 31 March. The terms are not interchangeable.

Now, I always thought a financial year was the period used by businesses for their annual report and accounts (broadly speaking) and could be any date as long as it was the same date each year.

polymaff

Over62 wrote: »

Can I just remind everyone that a tax year, which ends on 5 April, is not the same as a financial year, which ends on 31 March. The terms are not interchangeable.

In UK terms, a financial year is just a twelve-month period. No start or finish date is implied - it is up to the individual organisation to choose.

When dealing with the taxation of personal income the tax year does, indeed, end on 5th April.

Bet it has been asked before but who - without resort to the internet - knows why the 5th April?

moneyfoolish

Doc_N wrote: »

Same here - but without Microsoft Money keeping track of what's going on would be impossible!

As a PAYE tax payer I find it pretty easy without having to do much. Last year I made a rough estimate that I would get in the region of £2500 in savings interest and informed HMRC. It turned out that the actual figure was around £2200 so I got a rebate.
This year they based my tax code on last year's amount but I did a rough estimate and knew it would reduce to around £1700 so I informed HMRC of that and I got a new tax code. At the end of the year it will be a little bit more or a little bit less and they'll either give me a rebate or change next year's code for an underpayment. I always tend to over-estimate as I'd rather have a small rebate than have slightly lower earnings in the following year.

Eco_Miser

polymaff wrote: »

Bet it has been asked before but who - without resort to the internet - knows why the 5th April?

When we switched from the Julian to Gregorian calendar, we 'lost' days, but the treasury just moved the year end to be 365 days after the previous year end.
Why the year end was previously Lady Day, I've no idea.

soulsaver

moneyfoolish wrote: »

As a PAYE tax payer I find it pretty easy without having to do much. Last year I made a rough estimate that I would get in the region of £2500 in savings interest and informed HMRC. It turned out that the actual figure was around £2200 so I got a rebate.
This year they based my tax code on last year's amount but I did a rough estimate and knew it would reduce to around £1700 so I informed HMRC of that and I got a new tax code. At the end of the year it will be a little bit more or a little bit less and they'll either give me a rebate or change next year's code for an underpayment. I always tend to over-estimate as I'd rather have a small rebate than have slightly lower earnings in the following year.

Are you telling them the year end actual figure or are they picking up the info from the banks & making the rebate? If it's you how are you doing that?

polymaff

Eco_Miser wrote: »

When we switched from the Julian to Gregorian calendar, we 'lost' days, but the treasury just moved the year end to be 365 days after the previous year end.
Why the year end was previously Lady Day, I've no idea.

What a good day for the general start of the year 25th March was - and would be now. Winter definitely losing its grip etc. etc.

polymaff

Eco_Miser wrote: »

When we switched from the Julian to Gregorian calendar, we 'lost' days, but the treasury just moved the year end to be 365 days after the previous year end.
Why the year end was previously Lady Day, I've no idea.

What a good day for the general start of the year 25th March was - and would be now. Winter definitely losing its grip etc. etc.

Tirian

I'm a little confused by this. I'm a higher (not additional rate) taxpayer. I received around £100 interest in the tax year 2016-17.

On that basis, I should not be paying any tax on the interest I receive.

But when I filled in my tax return, I initially put £200 interest as I forgot to divide the amount earned in our joint account by two.

On the calculation page of the tax return it showed up as £216 * 0% = 0 due.

But when I amended the amount to £108, my total tax due went down by £22 - even though the calculation page of the tax return still showed the tax due on the savings interest as £108 * 0% = 0.

In other words, even though they are allegedly not levying tax on the interest, it is nevertheless still being counted in my income somewhere in the calculations and being added to my overall tax due. Surely this can't be right?