Tax on Savings acct if you already have interest from ISAs

twopenny

So I'm retired and old age pension and a small private pension - I have to pay tax.

I have 2 ISAs  and was interested to put a small amount of (£5,000) money in a savings account.#

But I'm not sure if I will have to declare the interest on a Savings Acct - it won't be anything like the limit so under £1000 allowed.

Don't want to have to start filling in tax forms for the small amount of savings.

I remember in decades past having to declare everything in detail just because I had a £100 or so savings interest and it was a nighmare. It will be around £64 this time but would be better than nothing.

I'd be grateful for any advice

gravel_2

ISAs can be ignored when considering this question. Interest earned inside of an ISA does not need to be reported to HMRC.

twopenny

Thank you Gravel, but will I have to fill out tax forms for the small savings account?

Happy days when it was done at source

EthicsGradient

No, you won't have to fill in any forms at all, if all your savings interest outside ISAs is under £1,000 (as gravel_2 says, interest inside ISAs is completely ignored). I think one of the reasons they give people allowances on savings interest, dividends and so on is just to cut down on the forms they have to process.

MisterMotivated

You shouldn't have to complete a tax return if the interest is less than £1,000.  The bank should report automatically to HMRC

twopenny

Thank you. I'll do that then.

Been a long time since I needed to move money and things change.

Indeed Ethics, in the days when you could ring the local tax office I asked about declaring a tiny income on sales.

He groaned and said 'please don't, it's so much work for so little'...........

MikeJXE

I’m retired too with a small private pension and pay tax.

I  don’t have isas yet as my savings interest doesn’t take me over the tax free savings threshold yet

Your isas are irrelevant 

You don’t have to declare any interest, the banks do that for you and if you exceed your threshold HMRC will write to you.

You would need a lot more than £5,000 in savings for that to happen, nearer £20,000, more if your income is less than £18,750 

Barkin

MisterMotivated said:

You shouldn't have to complete a tax return if the interest is less than £1,000.  The bank should report automatically to HMRC

You don't need to file a tax return if it's over £1000 either, provided it's under £10000

Albermarle

MisterMotivated said:

You shouldn't have to complete a tax return if the interest is less than £1,000.  The bank should report automatically to HMRC

This is incorrect.
You only have to fill in a self assessment tax return if you earn more than £10,000  in interest.
Otherwise the savings provider will inform HMRC of interest earned, and they will automatically work out if you owe any tax on that interest.

friolento

If you are worried about savings tax, why not put your £5k into an instant access ISA?

eskbanker

Albermarle said:

MisterMotivated said:

You shouldn't have to complete a tax return if the interest is less than £1,000.  The bank should report automatically to HMRC

This is incorrect.
You only have to fill in a self assessment tax return if you earn more than £10,000  in interest.
Otherwise the savings provider will inform HMRC of interest earned, and they will automatically work out if you owe any tax on that interest.

It's not actually incorrect as such - if the interest is less than £1,000 (OP's stated scenario) then there's no need to complete a tax return, but the fact that there's no need to complete one even if the interest is £9,999 doesn't make the posted statement factually incorrect!