Are optional boxes in my self assessment form really optional

adgsaver

In the dividend section of my self assessment form the word optional appears besides each box. If you leave each box blank and have declared you do have dividend income you can't proceed. If however , purely for the sake of argument, you have £20 in foreign dividends and £20,000 in british dividends and you just fill in the foreign dividend box of £20 and leave the uk dividend box of £20,000 blank you can proceed, the tax office will be none the wiser and you have done nothing wrong in not declaring it. This cant be right. Am I missing something.

adgsaver

As a follow up from my previous post I do feel the tax office do have access to just how much you do receive in dividends and would use the figure they have to assess your tax liability if neccessary. Personally therefore I am going to declare the figure I feel to be correct to the best of my ability and not have the tax office do it for me. Besides which I have declared what I thought to be the correct figure  in the past and the tax office would smell a rat if i didnt do it this year. However it would be much easier if the tax office removed the option box and allow us to put 0 if we didnt have any dividends in either the foreign or uk boxes.

SiliconChip

adgsaver said:

In the dividend section of my self assessment form the word optional appears besides each box. If you leave each box blank and have declared you do have dividend income you can't proceed. If however , purely for the sake of argument, you have £20 in foreign dividends and £20,000 in british dividends and you just fill in the foreign dividend box of £20 and leave the uk dividend box of £20,000 blank you can proceed, the tax office will be none the wiser and you have done nothing wrong in not declaring it. This cant be right. Am I missing something.

I'm not sure why you thing failing to declare dividends is doing nothing wrong, it's clearly tax evasion and would render you liable to prosecution. It's your responsibility to declare your income, so doing what you say in your subsequent post is the right decision.

DullGreyGuy

It's optional in the sense that not everyone will have something to put in that box but it's not optional if you do have something to declare.