Is optional really optional in your on line self assesment return?

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 beforehand that 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 can't 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 word optional from beside each box, leave us to put 0 if we didn't have any dividends in either the foreign or uk boxes and not leave any loophole or ambiguity regarding this matter.

najan49

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 beforehand that 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 can't be right. Am I missing something ?.

Apart from tax evasion?

megacatt

I fell foul of taking the word 'optional' at its dictionary meaning a few years ago.

Optional in HMRC world means that you only have to fill it in if the box in question applies to you.  

If it applies to you is is definitely not optional, you need to answer the question.

I had a discussion with them regarding how they can't just assign new meanings to English words.  To be fair to the chap he conceded my point but pointed out that the explanation box does set out what they mean by 'optional.  i.e. it's not optional.