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Ignorant question about savings interest and tax returns
Having always worked in the public sector, for a modest salary, I have never done a tax return in my life until very recently, when it became necessary due to becoming an accidental landlord. Most of my income is occupational pension taxed at source. If I have money in savings accounts on which I earn interest, am I supposed to list all the interest on the tax return? I have never done so. Do they have other ways of finding out what interest I may be earning? Please excuse this naive question. Thanks for any genuine advice.
Comments
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Of course you ahould have, it's a return of all your taxable income. How much are we talking in interest?
HMRC are notified of it and if there is additional tax to pay then there may be interest and penalties charged.
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Hello Nebbit,
You may find our guidance on tax on savings and investments useful.
Tax on savings and investments | Low Incomes Tax Reform Group
“Official Company Representative
I am an official representative of LITRG (Low Incomes Tax Reform Group) part of the Chartered Institute of Taxation who are an educational charity. We are not part of MSE or HMRC. MSE has given permission for me to post on the Forum but this does NOT imply any form of approval of my organisation or its products by MSE. We can’t give individual advice, but if you require further help, we recommend that you contact a tax adviser, HMRC or one of the tax charities where relevant. You can find more information about where to get help with tax here. If you believe I am posting inappropriately please report it to forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com This does NOT imply any form of approval of my company or its products by MSE"1 -
I said no
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The interest earned would have been in the low hundreds, if that
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Giving a clearly false answer to a simple yes/no question, and then formally declaring that you'd answered it truthfully, is obviously not a good idea, but if doing so didn't actually affect your tax liability (assuming taxable interest would have fitted within your personal savings allowance) then it's unlikely that you'd be subjected to any punitive action from HMRC.
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The savings providers will send details of your interest earned to HMRC . So for tax year 25/26 they will send the details around about June/July 2026.
At that point probably HMRC will notice you did not declare any interest on your tax return and will query that.
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You can go back and amend the tax return to include the interest you should have declared. (Start by ticking Yes instead of No to that question and then you'll get the pages you need to fill in) Don't leave it too long - I think there is a time limit for amending self assessment tax returns.
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You need to find the correct figures for the interest earned. You will have been sent (or possibly notified by email of its availability online) a statement/certificate of the interest earned by each of your savings accounts in the last financial year.
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And of course; the death penalty has been abolished. 😄
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