Tax on savings interest

kuepper

SiliconChip said:

All interest paid is reported to HMRC by banks, buildig societies, etc. By now they should have a reasonably accurate total for the 2023/4 tax year which you can see in your personal tax account, but you'll have to call HMRC if you want to get a breakdown so that you can reconcile the figures with your own records - I suggest that you do it as I discovered one bank's interest was missing from the HMRC total, and I'm still trying to find out whether it's an error at the bank or at HMRC.

Well I never even knew I had a personal tax account so I've learned something, I'll look into that. Contrary to what  someone seems to be suggesting I know all the interest I've received but it's never broken down by tax year eg if I've a 12 month regular saver that ends in September I only know how much interest I've received in total at the end not how much I received in each of the 2 tax years the saver covered.

Sarahspangles

kuepper said:

SiliconChip said:

All interest paid is reported to HMRC by banks, buildig societies, etc. By now they should have a reasonably accurate total for the 2023/4 tax year which you can see in your personal tax account, but you'll have to call HMRC if you want to get a breakdown so that you can reconcile the figures with your own records - I suggest that you do it as I discovered one bank's interest was missing from the HMRC total, and I'm still trying to find out whether it's an error at the bank or at HMRC.

Well I never even knew I had a personal tax account so I've learned something, I'll look into that. Contrary to what  someone seems to be suggesting I know all the interest I've received but it's never broken down by tax year eg if I've a 12 month regular saver that ends in September I only know how much interest I've received in total at the end not how much I received in each of the 2 tax years the saver covered.

If you have a savings account that pays annual interest you only need to take account of the payment in the tax year you receive the interest. So in your example, September.

We have simple spreadsheets that we can sort by maturity date. A column contains estimated and actual interest. At the end of the financial year we compare that to HMRC’s estimate.

pumas

I've 'spent' a lot of capital this year, so will have much less taxable interest 2025/26

How do you change the estimate online?
Is it the "income from another source" page?
If so, is it "Other Income(not earned)?
At the end it asks for an estimate, which is obviously not necessarily true and accurate, 
but then says:
By selecting confirm and send you declare that the information you have provided is true and complete.
which doesn't make sense to me

molerat

pumas said:

I've 'spent' a lot of capital this year, so will have much less taxable interest 2025/26

How do you change the estimate online?
Is it the "income from another source" page?
If so, is it "Other Income(not earned)?
At the end it asks for an estimate, which is obviously not necessarily true and accurate, 
but then says:
By selecting confirm and send you declare that the information you have provided is true and complete.
which doesn't make sense to me

Missing investment income

Dazed_and_C0nfused

pumas said:

I've 'spent' a lot of capital this year, so will have much less taxable interest 2025/26

How do you change the estimate online?
Is it the "income from another source" page?
If so, is it "Other Income(not earned)?
At the end it asks for an estimate, which is obviously not necessarily true and accurate, 
but then says:
By selecting confirm and send you declare that the information you have provided is true and complete.
which doesn't make sense to me

That is something completely different.

You want the (badly named) missing investment income option.

If it isn't true and complete then don't submit a change.  But if you have calculated the expected interest then why wouldn't it be true and complete?

kuepper

If you have a savings account that pays annual interest you only need to take account of the payment in the tax year you receive the interest. So in your example, September.

We have simple spreadsheets that we can sort by maturity date. A column contains estimated and actual interest. At the end of the financial year we compare that to HMRC’s estimate.

Ah I think I've got it at last! Wouldn't HMRC simply adjust the figure for the following tax year if the actual interest differed from the predicted interest?

Dazed_and_C0nfused

kuepper said:

If you have a savings account that pays annual interest you only need to take account of the payment in the tax year you receive the interest. So in your example, September.

We have simple spreadsheets that we can sort by maturity date. A column contains estimated and actual interest. At the end of the financial year we compare that to HMRC’s estimate.

Ah I think I've got it at last! Wouldn't HMRC simply adjust the figure for the following tax year if the actual interest differed from the predicted interest?

The normal way things happen is for the latest information to be used as an estimate.

So for your current tax code (2024-25) and next years (2025-26) that will usually be the actual information for 2023-24.

Later this summer/autumn the 2025-26 tax code might be updated to use the 2024-25 information (which banks have to submit by 30 June after the end of the tax year) although everything seems to be slower this year with people reporting getting new tax codes for 2024-25 in January.