Will I be fined for not submitting a SA return when I didn't realise it was needed?

Sulaco86

I was just listening to Martin on the podcast when he was discussing SA returns (I'm a few weeks behind). I was surprised when he said in passing that anyone earning over £150k PA automatically had to do one, as I was oblivious to this. I was lucky enough to pass that threshold a couple of years back, but was unaware of this rule, and haven't been formally asked to do an SA return by HMRC. My regular income is stil under the limit, but with my annual bonus it goes over.

I also just discovered that my company pension is not salary sacrifice as I had thought (it's been a week of discovery!), so I need to go back and do the last couple of years of SA anyway to reclaim my tax.

When I do that and they see my income is over the threshold, will I be fined? Or is that only if you fail to submit one after being fomally asked to do so? I'll obviously do it anyway, I'm just wondering if I'm in for a couple of years worth of fines?

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Sulaco86 said:

I was just listening to Martin on the podcast when he was discussing SA returns (I'm a few weeks behind). I was surprised when he said in passing that anyone earning over £150k PA automatically had to do one, as I was oblivious to this. I was lucky enough to pass that threshold a couple of years back, but was unaware of this rule, and haven't been formally asked to do an SA return by HMRC. My regular income is stil under the limit, but with my annual bonus it goes over.

I also just discovered that my company pension is not salary sacrifice as I had thought (it's been a week of discovery!), so I need to go back and do the last couple of years of SA anyway to reclaim my tax.

When I do that and they see my income is over the threshold, will I be fined? Or is that only if you fail to submit one after being fomally asked to do so? I'll obviously do it anyway, I'm just wondering if I'm in for a couple of years worth of fines?

The answer to your basic question is no, you cannot be fined for not filing a return you haven't been asked to file.

Once you register and are sent a return or notice to file a return you have 3 months to file it without any late filing penalty.

However if you owe any tax you would be charged late payment interest from the normal due date (31 January after the end of the tax year the return relates to).

Have you established which of the other methods is used to make your pension contributions?  You can normally only claim on a tax return for relief at source (RAS) contributions and it would be unusual for someone to mix up salary sacrifice and RAS contributions.

Sulaco86

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

The answer to your basic question is no, you cannot be fined for not filing a return you haven't been asked to file.

Once you register and are sent a return or notice to file a return you have 3 months to file it without any late filing penalty.

However if you owe any tax you would be charged late payment interest from the normal due date (31 January after the end of the tax year the return relates to).

Have you established which of the other methods is used to make your pension contributions?  You can normally only claim on a tax return for relief at source (RAS) contributions and it would be unusual for someone to mix up salary sacrifice and RAS contributions.

Thanks, good to know I won't get a fine. I'm fairly sure I am owed a rebate, so there shouldn't be any interest due.

With regards the pension, it's a non-salary sacrifice Nest Pension, and looking at my dashboard in Nest they are only claiming the 20% rebate. So as I now pay top rate, I have an additional 25% to claim back. I had just assumed it was salary sacrifice when I joined the company a couple of years back, as every other pension I've had for the last decade was SS. But there was an announcement this week that the company is considered switching it over to SS, which clued me in to my mistake!

MetaPhysical

Sulaco86 said:

I was just listening to Martin on the podcast when he was discussing SA returns (I'm a few weeks behind). I was surprised when he said in passing that anyone earning over £150k PA automatically had to do one, as I was oblivious to this. I was lucky enough to pass that threshold a couple of years back, but was unaware of this rule, and haven't been formally asked to do an SA return by HMRC. My regular income is stil under the limit, but with my annual bonus it goes over.

I also just discovered that my company pension is not salary sacrifice as I had thought (it's been a week of discovery!), so I need to go back and do the last couple of years of SA anyway to reclaim my tax.

When I do that and they see my income is over the threshold, will I be fined? Or is that only if you fail to submit one after being fomally asked to do so? I'll obviously do it anyway, I'm just wondering if I'm in for a couple of years worth of fines?

That happened to me about ten years ago when the SA threshold was 100k.  I was earning 120k or so and never filled out a return.  Then one day out the blue I got a HMRC letter asking me to start doing them.  They never asked me to do SA's for previous years and there was no fine.