Self Assessment: Savings Interest Statements for closed accounts.

Shylock_249

Brunokid said:

Could you not get your interest payments from your statements?

I have a small  (free) screen capture program on my PC and whenever I view an entry on my PC showing interest on accounts etc I use that, it automatically captures the whole screen as a jpeg.  I do the same if interest is paid into my high street bank.

Most times I'm still able to log into the bank/bs and download a statement, if that's the case I discount the print screen.

But, as has been said with some banks/bs if you close the account you can no longer log back into to obtain details.  Print screen might be your saviour?

Shylock_249

Veteransaver said:

Yes I've often wondered this. Surely HMRC can only ever form an estimate. NI number is needed for ISAs but not normal savings. So they could only tie it up based on name and address (maybe dob). And what about joint accounts?

The details notified to HMRC by banks include all holders.  The list of interests paid by banks held by HMRC shows the number of account holders.  One of the columns simply (in my case) shows a 1 (previous years) or a 2.  Where bank interest has been notified to HMRC for our joint accounts they have always been shown correctly with 50/50% allocated to each of us.

eskbanker

dosh37 said:

eskbanker said:

dosh37 said:

Years ago savings organisations would send a complete statement through the post at the end of the tax year. I believe The Coventry BS still does this.

Up to 2016, there was an obligation to provide tax certificates but that was because the institutions were deducting tax from the interest.

dosh37 said:

How are we expected to complete a Self Assessement Tax Return if we are unable to obtain the necessary information?

You're expected to keep records yourself.

If you fail to do so then you are dependent on contacting the institutions or working out interest yourself from bank statements for money to/from savings accounts.

When an account is closed, the amount transferred into your bank shows the final amount. It does not show separate figures for interest. It gets more complicated if some of the interest applies to an earlier tax year i.e. the interest was left in the account to be compounded rather than being withdrawn. Unless it's something like a fixed term bond over more than one year, tax is payable when interest becomes available to be be withdrawn, not when you decide to draw it.

If you have dozens of accounts, many of which have been closed, then contacting every savings organisation would take days or weeks and leave you a jibbering wreck. Have you ever tried to get through to one of these organisations by phone? After listening to recorded messages telling you that you can do everything online followed by the inevitable 'our phone lines are unusually busy, blah blah' then 20 minutes listening to 'music?' most people give up.

Well, exactly, you're making my point for me!  You're responsible for keeping your own records of all taxable income, and, if you fail to do so, then the price to pay for such carelessness is the laborious and time-consuming process of trying to get hold of (or calculate) information that you chose not to access easily when you had the opportunity.  Anyone able and willing to operate "dozens of accounts" should obviously be capable of tracking them, including interest earned....

dosh37

eskbanker said:

dosh37 said:

eskbanker said:

dosh37 said:

Years ago savings organisations would send a complete statement through the post at the end of the tax year. I believe The Coventry BS still does this.

Up to 2016, there was an obligation to provide tax certificates but that was because the institutions were deducting tax from the interest.

dosh37 said:

How are we expected to complete a Self Assessement Tax Return if we are unable to obtain the necessary information?

You're expected to keep records yourself.

If you fail to do so then you are dependent on contacting the institutions or working out interest yourself from bank statements for money to/from savings accounts.

When an account is closed, the amount transferred into your bank shows the final amount. It does not show separate figures for interest. It gets more complicated if some of the interest applies to an earlier tax year i.e. the interest was left in the account to be compounded rather than being withdrawn. Unless it's something like a fixed term bond over more than one year, tax is payable when interest becomes available to be be withdrawn, not when you decide to draw it.

If you have dozens of accounts, many of which have been closed, then contacting every savings organisation would take days or weeks and leave you a jibbering wreck. Have you ever tried to get through to one of these organisations by phone? After listening to recorded messages telling you that you can do everything online followed by the inevitable 'our phone lines are unusually busy, blah blah' then 20 minutes listening to 'music?' most people give up.

Well, exactly, you're making my point for me!  You're responsible for keeping your own records of all taxable income, and, if you fail to do so, then the price to pay for such carelessness is the laborious and time-consuming process of trying to get hold of (or calculate) information that you chose not to access easily when you had the opportunity.  Anyone able and willing to operate "dozens of accounts" should obviously be capable of tracking them, including interest earned....

In my view, it should be up to HMRC to tell us what we owe.

They should not expect us to tell them what we 'think' we owe and then fine us if we get it wrong.

They already have the required information from the savings organisations.

The existing system makes no sense to me at all.

It's the equivalent of an energy company requiring a customer to tell them how much energy we 'think' we have used instead of sending out a bill, even though they already know the answer through their meters. The meters are the equivalent of interest notification provided by saving organisations directly to HMRC.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

dosh37 said:

eskbanker said:

dosh37 said:

eskbanker said:

dosh37 said:

Years ago savings organisations would send a complete statement through the post at the end of the tax year. I believe The Coventry BS still does this.

Up to 2016, there was an obligation to provide tax certificates but that was because the institutions were deducting tax from the interest.

dosh37 said:

How are we expected to complete a Self Assessement Tax Return if we are unable to obtain the necessary information?

You're expected to keep records yourself.

If you fail to do so then you are dependent on contacting the institutions or working out interest yourself from bank statements for money to/from savings accounts.

When an account is closed, the amount transferred into your bank shows the final amount. It does not show separate figures for interest. It gets more complicated if some of the interest applies to an earlier tax year i.e. the interest was left in the account to be compounded rather than being withdrawn. Unless it's something like a fixed term bond over more than one year, tax is payable when interest becomes available to be be withdrawn, not when you decide to draw it.

If you have dozens of accounts, many of which have been closed, then contacting every savings organisation would take days or weeks and leave you a jibbering wreck. Have you ever tried to get through to one of these organisations by phone? After listening to recorded messages telling you that you can do everything online followed by the inevitable 'our phone lines are unusually busy, blah blah' then 20 minutes listening to 'music?' most people give up.

Well, exactly, you're making my point for me!  You're responsible for keeping your own records of all taxable income, and, if you fail to do so, then the price to pay for such carelessness is the laborious and time-consuming process of trying to get hold of (or calculate) information that you chose not to access easily when you had the opportunity.  Anyone able and willing to operate "dozens of accounts" should obviously be capable of tracking them, including interest earned....

In my view, it should be up to HMRC to tell us what we owe.

They should not expect us to tell them what we 'think' we owe and then fine us if we get it wrong.

They already have the required information from the savings organisations.

The existing system makes no sense to me at all.

It's the equivalent of an energy company requiring a customer to tell them how much energy we 'think' we have used instead of sending out a bill, even though they already know the answer through their meters. The meters are the equivalent of interest notification provided by saving organisations directly to HMRC.

Where would a fine come into the equation 🤔

If you complete a tax return then the onus is on you to complete it accurately.

jak22

Ideally each bank would generate a certificate of interest for all accounts that have been opened in the year, either shortly after April 5 or on account closure. Many do, but not all, and some need for them to be requested - this should surely be a regulation like needing to quote an AER or the ISA rules. 

It's also worth keeping the monthly statements, but it's not uncommon for these to be unavailable for closed accounts. If possible download a statement just before closing, but this likely won't include any closing interest.

When it's a mobile app only bank it is slightly trickier to transfer PDF statements into storage.

The best way is to keep a spreadsheet of monthly interest received to provide the total figure for the tax year - the other documents are then just supporting evidence.

eskbanker

dosh37 said:
In my view, it should be up to HMRC to tell us what we owe.

They should not expect us to tell them what we 'think' we owe and then fine us if we get it wrong.

They already have the required information from the savings organisations.

The existing system makes no sense to me at all.

It's the equivalent of an energy company requiring a customer to tell them how much energy we 'think' we have used instead of sending out a bill, even though they already know the answer through their meters. The meters are the equivalent of interest notification provided by saving organisations directly to HMRC.

It has always been the taxpayer's responsibility to pay the correct amount of tax, and self-assessment gives a fairly obvious clue about the roles within the process!  HMRC do increasingly have the ability to validate submissions for accuracy, but in many cases their information is less reliable than that of the taxpayer....

Swipe

Moral of the thread, don't close any savings accounts until you have complete records of all taxable interest accrued for the previous tax year.

Shylock_249

Swipe said:

Moral of the thread, don't close any savings accounts until you have complete records of all taxable interest accrued for the previous tax year.

I kept £10 in a saver account within my high street bank; thinking I'd keep it open.  Come the end of the year Lloyds reported it to HMRC with an interest payment of £0.06p, that was shown on the Interest Print out I requested from HMRC. Personally, I'd rather close them down having retrieved all the information I need.

masonic

Even if you do close a savings account without recording all of the interest payments, the closing balance is usually sent to another of your accounts. Unless you can't keep track of payments in and out of your savings account or the balance before interest, you can deduce how much interest was credited at closure.