Tax man caught up with me....

eddyinfreehold

Yes, unless your investment is in an innovative finance ISA then tax is payable on anything over your personal allowance. I have just had to pay some. It didn't hurt.


You make it sound like you haven't been declaring anything at all and you've been caught out. Not a way to go about it really, resenting the law.



My children have all benefitted from free education and healthcare, my youngest at 22 is severely disabled and receives DLA and several other 'benefits' to alleviate her situation. In a civilised society we pay taxes to provide for the public good. I hope not, but I may need the services of the Fire Brigade or the Police tonight, tomorrow or next year. I'm glad taxes pay for them. My take on this perennial debate is that there is something vaguely immoral about tax avoidance. Tax evasion is quite simply illegal.



Look at Ken Dodd. He was investigated, charged and exonorated in court. Doubtless he had enormous wealth. He got married as it finally became obvious to him that he couldn't take it with him and a lot would go straight to the Treasury as IHT. His marriage mitigated a part of this and he was able through his partner to direct a lot of his wealth to charitable projects of his choice instead. A case of selecting where your tax goes I guess. I don't have much problem with this.


What's the quote? Jean-Baptiste Colbert said....."The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to procure the largest quantity of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing."

Lokolo

Upwind wrote: »

There seems to be a few righteous folk on here - I don't see what's wrong in trying to avoid paying any more tax that I have to. I don't have off-shore accounts, or a business to launder it through, so I thought I would ask the question..... As I said previously, I'm just trying to save money - as the majority on this site are doing....

It's not the fact that you are trying to save money and are looking for tax avoidance schemes, it's actually your attitude towards the tax man.

If you remove all your complaints and annoyances of HMRC, then your posts would be a lot cleaner and you wouldn't come out so self righteous. You have no rights to complain, you knew the rules before you saved the money, therefore you have nothing to complain about (which to be fair, you have said in your second post that you owe the money and are happy to pay it, just other posts put you in the opposite light).

aj23_2

I'm all for saving money, but if your interest has gone over £1000 for the year at the basic rate of taxpaying, and you've earned enough interest to warrant £600 tax on that interest, then that's your liability to pay it like everyone else. You would have had they not started paying interest gross, so you're better off anyway.

That or just don't save so much so it keeps you under the £1000 interest limit of no tax. And for the ISAs, think of of much tax you have saved by making use of them over the years.

I mean, with 350k in savings, £600 is hardly going to put you on the street is it. It's a case of legality, not your interpretation of morality.

Upwind

Message received gents - thanks for all your advice.

EmilyG2010

I have an ISA with Assetz Capital (a P2P firm). They offer 4.1% instant access and money is protected via a provision fund (though no bank guarantee). You can have an IFISA plus a cash ISA so long as your combined funds do not exceed £20k in a given tax year. If you PM me I can use my recommend a friend to get you some cashback (tax free)

MisterMotivated

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

When interest barely covers inflation, any taxation of it means there is a reduction in the value of capital, some or most of which might be hard earned.

I never said the OP didn't work hard for the money he earned initially. I said he never worked hard for the interest that it accrued.

MisterMotivated

aj23 wrote: »

If you have 350k in savings and HMRC is chasing you for £600 because that's what you owe, then pay it. We all work hard for our money, but we still pay the tax owing.

Exactly. Pay the tax and be happy you're in the situation you are; plenty of people don't even have £600 in the bank, let alone, enough money to generate £600 interest, let alone enough money to generate enough interest to owe £600 tax, let alone enough money to generate enough interest to owe £600 tax even after sheltering a significant portion of their savings in tax efficient products such as ISAs.

danm

£600 owed - pay £600

But then yes, do everything legally possible to reduce that liability going forward. I would (and do) exactly the same.

You should use every option open to you.

The HMRC play a critical role- but they do not set the tax rate, so I would not be overly critical of them (except for their incompetence at times)

I don’t understand why anyone however would take the view that it’s ‘only £600’ so won’t make a dent - so it should be paid. The OP did not say he was not willing to pay what was owed.

MisterMotivated

danm wrote: »

I don’t understand why anyone however would take the view that it’s ‘only £600’ so won’t make a dent - so it should be paid. The OP did not say he was not willing to pay what was owed.

Fair point about the OP being willing to pay the money, but his comment of:

have managed to avoid tax investigation to date

suggests to me (although it is speculation) that the OP has, in the past, failed to mention all the interest he earned in previous years and therefore pay the appropriate amount of tax. He also talks about giving money to relatives to invest on his behalf; I'd consider that blatant tax avoidance and, whilst perhaps legal, it's not particularly ethical.

dont_use_vistaprint

Zola. wrote: »

what did vista print do to you? :rotfl:

They used to run a scam through an outfit called adaptive affinity in the UK that came up with a clever technological way to prevent opt-outs before data protection laws matured. It got stopped eventually as it was clearly unlawful, but they then went to great lengths even trying to sue forums (unsuccessfully) that mentioned it as the company moved on to other internet scams. I took about a year to recover the money they stole. I gave the directors a lot of grief, they had all sorts of investigations and regulatory issues to the point one of them goggled me and called me personally offering me money to stop :-)