TimGR

Thread below on salary and tax got me thinking, particularly as a lot of people seem unaware how tax is calculated.

Who here has to send in a tax return?

I do. Anyone else?

boxst

Hello

I do. It's a huge pain.

Steve.

MattW

me too

lpski1

Dont think i have to, as the company who i work for should be doing it shouldnt they ?

TimGR

Most people don't have to. I do, and I don't even live in the UK!!

RB5320

Yep. Sent mine off yesterday. I always dread doing it, but when you actually start filling it in it's pretty straightforward.

Steve

fast bloke

yep

ProperCharlie

my accounts guy does mine. no idea what he writes on it

maybe i'm a bit too trusting?

V5

I'm doing one this year for the first time and I don't know why. I've only got the one job, and no income from anywhere else.

Would anyone have an idea as to why I suddenly have to?

Scooby96

I've been on PAYE since I started work 13/14 years ago. However I rented my house out when I was 19 and ever since doing that I've had to fill the fecking forms in. Same info every year taken from my P60, havent got any savings apart from share options at work. It must take them all of 10 seconds to file my completed forms!

Although one year I did put the decimal place in the wrong place so it looked like I'd earnt £375k and they sent me a letter saying that I owed them some ridiculous amount like £137k. Took them about 6 weeks to correct this error though!

Dream Weaver

I do, but haven't done it yet

I do mine online, so the deadline is January 04 - just need to save up to pay the tax now, did have it but spent it on a 205 Mi16 instead - oops .

Duck_Pond

I got my first one last year, and it was a mare. See the other thread on here about earnings. I basically had to perform my own calculations, because they sent the form to me so late. I missed out the field for what I'd paid in tax already and got billed for £13,000. **** a brick I can tell you.

I too only have one job, but had obviously appeared on their radar screens as I reached the 40% barrier.

Tiggs

do it on the net takes 5 mins, once a year.

RB5320

Duck_Pond - I thought that if you want them to work out the tax, you have to send it back either by Sep 30th, or 2 months from the date they sent it to you, whichever is latest.

Steve

Duck_Pond

Yep - that's what the form said, hence the letter I sent with it. They simply couldn't be bothered from what I could see. So I had to do it anyway. Sent this year's form off ages ago. Not going through that stress again - besides, I've run out of Grecian 2000!

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

I do, and it's a pain. Unfortunately PAYE only works for fairly simple cases - basic rate tax, no share dealing, no self-employment. Anyone else finds they need to fill in a return.

Things like income from interest on savings, income from regular employment and so on are easy. It's income in foreign currencies that really confuses things - all the boxes are for figures in £££, and that's pretty meaningless if the exchange rate varies. I've found myself filling in the correct totals, then working back to figure out what the other numbers should have been in order that I end up paying the right amount of tax.

It's something that puts me off becoming self-employed too, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Graz

First time this year, anyone paying high rate tax should do one apparently, though I had to ask the inland revenue to send me one (twice) I'm hoping to get a reasonable refund as my pension contributions are entitled to high rate tax relief but only normal rate is deducted at the PAYE stage.

I was intending to fill it out on-line. Don't have a unique tax reference number (UTR) to register on-line so rang up to find out what it was. Several phone calls later I'm told I have to fill out a paper tax return to get a UTR number. DOH!

Guess what I'm doing this weekend.

Scooby96

You wanna try doing VAT returns!

Freak

Its not that bad

The prospect of getting f*cked up the *** by the govt./tax man puts me off ever becoming PAYE .....

scoob_babe

Duck_Pond - I managed to avoid doing the calcs for 2001-2002 because they hadn't put me on their database as having asked for the form - I did this form in April 2003.
Having fun now though - my old company seems to have put the wrong figures down on my P60 - I entered in the figures onto the tax return as indicated with a star. Phoned IR yesterday to get them to amend the pensions section and it transpires that they thought I only earned £6k per year! I think it might have something to do with them going into Administration in Jan this year - but as far as I knew, I'd only worked for the one company for the whole of that tax year! They were quite good about it and I've sent in the copy of the P60. Only downside is that I'm gonna have to give back the rather large tax rebate

Buzzer

slasha

Graz, if you're in a company pension scheme that deducts your contributions at source ie PAYE, then you'll have already benefitted from higher rate tax relief. I assume therefore you pay into a personal pension that only receives 22% tax relief with the additional 18% to be claimed via your tax return.

Anybody who pays 40% tax has to do a tax return to declare interest recieved etc. As most people have their wages paid into the bank, with even the most p!ssy accounts paying interest these days it's not a good idea to state you haven't received any. Just put a minimal amount if you can't be arsed to find out the exact figure as they never check.

Any one can do their return on line which is much simpler, gives you til Jan 04 to complete and they still work out your tax for you because a calcultion is made as soon as you enter the final bit of info they need. No one checks the figures(as far as i know) so you simply send a check for what you owe or wait for a rebate cheque if one's due. I got about £300 back last year due to being on a higher tax code to long after switching from a company car to an allowance and it must have been with me within a week of completing my return!

Pete The Biker

I keep writing to them to say that I want to cancel my membership / subscription but they keep charging me

[img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

pugoetru

LOL you wish