Self assesment needed?

Pshemek

Hi,

First of all I want to let you know I am not very familiar with the UK income tax system, not sure how it works at all
The only thing I know is that I pay income tax, a lot of it
I work in financial services and got an option to buy up to 1800 GBP worth of shares from my gross salary to save on income tax and national insurance contributions. The shares are of a french company and I receive yearly dividends. The dividend it taxed in France @30% tax rate (what a rip off!!!). This year I have received about 280 GBP of net dividend, the capital gains tax was automatically subtracted at source (French tax man), funds were transferred to my UK account at HSBC.

I have received and email from my company saying that I need to pay taxes on foreign income, which I believe includes dividends. I do not receive any child benefit at all. No tax credits, no benefits. The income is just to high.

Could someone please push me in the in the right direction and explain if I have to declare these 280 GBP as dividends? I know there is a threshold of 300 GBP but I am not sure if this applies to gross or net dividends. Very confusing, I cannot find any explanation how this is done.

I have never filled any Self Assessment, all income tax I believe is going through this PAYE system, I only receive P60 each year and that's it. It is probably not worth receiving the dividends since it creates more trouble than it is worth. I want to make sure all is fine since my company told me I could go to prison for not declaring foreign income.

Thank you very much for any help

antrobus

HMRC - Tax on dividends
https://www.gov.uk/tax-on-dividends

You have a dividend allowance of £2,000. That covers your £400 gross dividend.

If it was taxable, I'd guess it would be taxed at 32.5% of £400, but you'd get double tax relief on the 30% French tax you'd have already paid. An extra £10 to pay.

Your company employs twonks. Nobody goes to prison for failing to declare a few hundred quid,

00ec25

antrobus wrote: »

Your company employs twonks. Nobody goes to prison for failing to declare a few hundred quid,

OP stated he works in Financial Services. Therefore it is entirely possible that he must meet the "fit and proper person" criteria - having a tax fraud case against him would "somewhat" impact that.... and whilst I agree very unlikely to end in a prison sentence, it is extremely likely he would be barred from ever working in financial services in the UK again.

Even if he is not in a job that requires him to be such an approved person, it is likely that his employer will have conditions of employment that include financial "crimes" as gross misconduct and instant dismissal - would you really expect otherwise in a financial services environment?

00ec25

Pshemek wrote: »

Could someone please push me in the in the right direction and explain if I have to declare these 280 GBP as dividends? I know there is a threshold of 300 GBP but I am not sure if this applies to gross or net dividends. Very confusing, I cannot find any explanation how this is done.

if those dividends are the ONLY income you have received outside of PAYE then you do not have to do a tax return because they amount to less than £10,000 gross and you do NOT owe tax on them because they are covered by the dividend "allowance" of £2,000

https://www.gov.uk/self-assessment-tax-returns/who-must-send-a-tax-return

your income from dividends from shares was £10,000 or more before tax - tell HMRC if it was over your dividends allowance

obviously if you have other sources of untaxed income besides the dividends you may need to declare them anyway given you are a higher rate taxpayer. Read the above link and the rules therein on when you can simply contact HMRC or when you must do a tax return instead

Pshemek

Hi, it is soooo confusing, all these different amounts. Looking at the gov website: 3w dott gov dott uk slash tax dash foreign dash income slash paying dash tax it says I do not need to declare dividends if my income from foreign dividends is less than 300 GBP. But they do not say what income – gross or net? I do not have any other income from abroad and as you correctly point out I am worried about this since any prosecution can result in a life ban from working in financial services. Even though I work in IT

I would rather not have this income since it causes so much trouble. Could you tell me till when I have time to fill in the forms?

Thanks a lot for any help

singhini

If you do your self assessment collectly, you should come to the conclusion you dont owe them any tax :rotfl:






Its a joke people

00ec25

Pshemek wrote: »

Hi, it is soooo confusing, all these different amounts. Looking at the gov website: 3w dott gov dott uk slash tax dash foreign dash income slash paying dash tax it says I do not need to declare dividends if my income from foreign dividends is less than 300 GBP. But they do not say what income – gross or net? I do not have any other income from abroad and as you correctly point out I am worried about this since any prosecution can result in a life ban from working in financial services. Even though I work in IT

I would rather not have this income since it causes so much trouble. Could you tell me till when I have time to fill in the forms?

Thanks a lot for any help

please try to read the answers you are being given rather then endlessly repeating the same question

The £300 refers to whether you have to fill out the foreign income pages of a tax return whilst doing that tax return. If below £300 you do not have to fill out those pages, instead you include it in the UK dividends pages, in the box for foreign ones below £00


all that is irrelevant... It does not relate to whether you have to do a tax return in the first place.

The link I gave you in post #4 explains when you do, and do NOT NEED, to do a tax return

Pshemek

I got it finally!

Thanks a lot for your patience and help