Retention of documents to do with my working life

Avoirdupois

Now retired and in receipt of both state and a local government pension, I'm going through a ton of old paperwork to make a fresh start (never too late...) and keep things neat & tidy.  I'm looking at old wage slips, P60s etc and I imagine there is no point in keeping them.  However, I still pay tax (obs) and wonder if I ought to be super-cautious and keep any doc.s that might be relevant to my tax position.  How long do people think I should keep old dcouments that relate to my working life, or can I dispose of them all?

eskbanker

https://www.gov.uk/keeping-your-pay-tax-records/how-long-to-keep-your-records explains the position from a tax perspective....

dunstonh

If you have a scanner and computer you can always scan them and destroy the originals.  Keep the copies in a hierarchy on onedrive or google drive or other similar options and you never have to worry about how long you keep things ever again.

Thrugelmir

If you've p60's then no need to retain wage slips. 

squirrelpie

Thrugelmir said:

If you've p60's then no need to retain wage slips. 

Always assuming there are no errors in the P60

pjcox2005

If you're tax position is simple - e.g employed, no additional income areas like rental property then I wouldn't bother keeping them.

If you did a self-assessment tax return e.g self employed, other sources of income, then I'd keep the last three years just to be cautious. 

Thrugelmir

squirrelpie said:

Thrugelmir said:

If you've p60's then no need to retain wage slips. 

Always assuming there are no errors in the P60

Should be produced from the same data. 

Secret2ndAccount

Is the pile that big?  Keep it 7 years then throw it away. I have an annual shredding session each year. After I file my tax form, I go up to the loft, get the 7 year old stuff and shred it.

dave0564

Loads of good quality advice above.  OR

You can sign up for your HMRC online account which SHOULD capture anything paid by PAYE, as well as self-assessment tax returns.  This will give you and HMRC assurance that the correct tax has been paid.  Once you have that, there is no real need to keep P60 and related PAYE stuff.  Esp if you check that everything is in agreement every year.  Might still be worth keeping the P60s for a while, just in case, filed each year with your reconciliation of the HMRC record for the year (if need be by screen print) to them.  You never know, you might find some overpaid tax.....

If all your income is under PAYE, you can then declare this, thus HMRC will not ask you for a tax return.  This looks likely in your case.

Self-assessment stuff is harder, because it is potentially more open to challenge.  This would include Salary paid to you under PAYE as a director of a Company, Dividends ditto, potentially also Expenses claimed and Benefits in Kind ditto, profits from unincorporated self-employment....  If I recall correctly, HMRC can go back 6 years for an "enquiry" (and 12 if they think evasion is involved), which pretty much coincides with the statutory requirement to retain business records anyway.  You can keep records electronically, so it's OK to have files of scanned invoices, bank statements etc.  Even if kept on paper, if this takes up more than a small file for each year, you need an accountant, and they can keep the necessary records for you.

That any help?

PS   you are right to be cautious - it has been said that the most expensive thing you can do is to take on HMRC and lose; the second most expensive is to take on HMRC and win.....the first round.

   

Avoirdupois

Thanks, everybody, for your helpful comments.  I've formed a plan!  All the best.

nigelbb

Much excellent practical &/or legal advice but don't forget about the sentimental or personal/family history side of all those wage slips & P60s. If you don't want to keep the paper then by all means scan the documents (now that you are retired you will have plenty of free time for the task😀) but you &/or your children & grandchildren may one day be interested to see how little you earned or how highly you were taxed or how rampant inflation has been over the decades.