Checking savings interest reported to HMRC

boingy

Given that they are under pressure to persuade people to view stuff online rather than phoning you'd think they would be keen to put the interest stuff online too. 

eskbanker

boingy said:

Given that they are under pressure to persuade people to view stuff online rather than phoning you'd think they would be keen to put the interest stuff online too. 

HMRC asserts that two-thirds of phone queries could have been dealt with online, so chances are there'd be more benefit from promoting the existing two-thirds rather than developing more functionality that would be ignored!

poolboy

My payment on account estimated by hmrc was pretty accurate, the only change for me was savings interest so their algorithm works in my case.

RedImp_2

PeskyBlunder said:

The information used to be available online a few years ago but it disappeared at some point - maybe inaccurate? Anyway, last year and this year I've received a P800 saying I had paid too little tax, but their figures and mine disagreed and I'm pretty sure it was because Marcus had not reported interest. I paid the amount requested and also wrote to them with my figures but never heard anything more from last year - the progress is "Completed". This year's is currently "Received".

Surely if Marcus hadn’t reported interest you would have underpaid tax !
From my figures last year I agreed exactly with HMRC apart from a small amount of interest which presumably Chase didn’t report and that included Marcus

Murmansk

I've noticed when doing my self assessment tax return that in the section where I tell them about interest earned it says "optional" so as I can't be bothered to look it all up I've not filled that in

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Murmansk said:

I've noticed when doing my self assessment tax return that in the section where I tell them about interest earned it says "optional" so as I can't be bothered to look it all up I've not filled that in

Very sensible.  Given that every single income related box on a tax return is "optional" did you bother with anything else 🤔

Murmansk

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

Very sensible.  Given that every single income related box on a tax return is "optional" did you bother with anything else 🤔

I hadn't really noticed any other sections being optional? It would seem unlikely that every income related box would be optional though - isn't the purpose of a tax return to see what you have earned so they can tax you? 

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Murmansk said:

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

Very sensible.  Given that every single income related box on a tax return is "optional" did you bother with anything else 🤔

I hadn't really noticed any other sections being optional? It would seem unlikely that every income related box would be optional though - isn't the purpose of a tax return to see what you have earned so they can tax you? 

I think you are totally missing the point here.

They have all got to be optional as not every person filling in a tax return has something to enter in every box.  Some people won't have say a pension.  Or employment income.  Or rental income.  Or be in a business partnership.  Why would HMRC force you to enter £0 in sections which don't apply?

Optional does not mean if you have something that needs to be entered you can simply not bother.

alfred64

HMRC do not take inflation into account either. Don't pay their guesstimate in advance.
If you were unfortunate so as not to protect interest from taxation so that you had 80k invested @ 4% interest and inflation was 3% then after one year in real terms your 80k would increase by only £85.

masonic

alfred64 said:

HMRC do not take inflation into account either. Don't pay their guesstimate in advance.
If you were unfortunate so as not to protect interest from taxation so that you had 80k invested @ 4% interest and inflation was 3% then after one year in real terms your 80k would increase by only £85.

Inflation linked gilts are worth considering as a solution to that particular objection.