Tax Certificate obligation?

Reed_Richards

Are financial institutions obliged to provide you with a tax certificate ("certificate of interest"), on request if necessary?  They're obliged to tell HMRC the total interest they paid you in the tax year but are they obliged to tell you?

For context, I have savings with one particular financial institution that says in their FAQ 

We’re no longer issuing tax certificates ...

MattMattMattUK

Reed_Richards said:

Are financial institutions obliged to provide you with a tax certificate ("certificate of interest"), on request if necessary?  They're obliged to tell HMRC the total interest they paid you in the tax year but are they obliged to tell you?

For context, I have savings with one particular financial institution that says in their FAQ 

We’re no longer issuing tax certificates ...

Sainsbury's Bank? 
https://www.sainsburysbank.co.uk/savings/support
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Will I get a tax certificate?

We’re no longer issuing tax certificates, but if you’ve got a Fixed Rate Saver, you will receive a Statement of Interest. 

If you have a variable savings product, your statement (monthly, quarterly or annually) will show the interest applied to your account. You can view your statements through Online Banking, and print them if you need to.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As banks no longer deduct tax from savings interest they are no longer required to supply a tax certificate, if for some odd reason they were deducting tax then they would be required to issue a tax certificate. 
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/corporate-finance-manual/cfm75090

A "Tax Certificate" is not a "Certificate of interest", they do not need to provide you with either, they do supply you with a "Statement of interest", this can be electronic or paper. 

Reed_Richards

MattMattMattUK said:

Reed_Richards said:

Are financial institutions obliged to provide you with a tax certificate ("certificate of interest"), on request if necessary?  They're obliged to tell HMRC the total interest they paid you in the tax year but are they obliged to tell you?

For context, I have savings with one particular financial institution that says in their FAQ 

We’re no longer issuing tax certificates ...

Sainsbury's Bank? 
https://www.sainsburysbank.co.uk/savings/support

Right first time.  I accumulated quite a few accounts that are now almost empty but which I never closed.  I really don't want to go through each of these, find the small amount of interest and add up to total.  Particularly not when the bank must have done this themselves to tell HMRC.

And yes, a Certificate of Interest is only a Tax Certificate in common parlance.    

Ozzig

Reed_Richards said:

MattMattMattUK said:

Reed_Richards said:

Are financial institutions obliged to provide you with a tax certificate ("certificate of interest"), on request if necessary?  They're obliged to tell HMRC the total interest they paid you in the tax year but are they obliged to tell you?

For context, I have savings with one particular financial institution that says in their FAQ 

We’re no longer issuing tax certificates ...

Sainsbury's Bank? 
https://www.sainsburysbank.co.uk/savings/support

Right first time.  I accumulated quite a few accounts that are now almost empty but which I never closed.  I really don't want to go through each of these, find the small amount of interest and add up to total.  Particularly not when the bank must have done this themselves to tell HMRC.    

Not the best answer I know, but HMRC will provide details of what has been declared to them, at least you'd have a list to work from.

Reed_Richards

Maybe a Freedom of Information Act request to the financial institution would yield the information I want?

eskbanker

Reed_Richards said:

Maybe a Freedom of Information Act request to the financial institution would yield the information I want?

The Freedom of Information Act only applies to public sector bodies and the like.

You can submit a subject access request under the Data Protection Act if you're seeking some or all of your personal data held by any given institution, but I'd suggest that doing so would be significantly more onerous than simply accessing statements, so wouldn't seem an obvious resolution to your issue of not wanting to go through each one!

wmb194

Just work your way through your statements. It shouldn't take that long. I keep track as I go along using MS Money 2005 and then have it spit out a tax report at the end of the year. Even if they send them to me, I don't look at tax certificates or wait for them to turn up before filing my SA.

Yorkie1

I was wondering about this in passing. If you have monthly interest paid, for example, on the 20th of the month, then in a financial year your interest payments are April to March. When calculating your interest for the year, for tax purposes, do you simply add up the 12 payments, or do you have to do a calculation for the start and end months to apportion the relevant number of days' interest?

wmb194

Yorkie1 said:

I was wondering about this in passing. If you have monthly interest paid, for example, on the 20th of the month, then in a financial year your interest payments are April to March. When calculating your interest for the year, for tax purposes, do you simply add up the 12 payments, or do you have to do a calculation for the start and end months to apportion the relevant number of days' interest?

The interest arises when it is paid and available so in your example, as they all arise in the same tax year, you'd just add them all together. You don't apportion or accrue. If the interest was paid on the 1st then the first interest payment would belong in one tax year and the remainder in the next.

Notepad_Phil

Yorkie1 said:

I was wondering about this in passing. If you have monthly interest paid, for example, on the 20th of the month, then in a financial year your interest payments are April to March. When calculating your interest for the year, for tax purposes, do you simply add up the 12 payments, or do you have to do a calculation for the start and end months to apportion the relevant number of days' interest?

Assuming that you have access to the interest then it's the date when the interest is added to the account that matters, so if your interest payments are from April 20th to March 20th then yes, you just add up the 12 payments as they all fall into the 6th April to 5th April tax year.

It would be more complicated if your monthlhy payments spanned a tax year, as you would then need to calculate the interest for each tax year.

masonic

It is worth noting that a certificate of interest cannot be relied upon as a figure for taxable interest, because interest included in a such a certificate (or indeed reported to HMRC) has not necessarily arisen for tax yet.