Income Tax

A new press release from HMRC has highlighted that 49,317 taxpayers took the time to file their tax returns online over the New Year holiday. It is estimated that over 6.5 million taxpayers have already filed their tax returns for 2022-23. This leaves almost 5.7 million taxpayers that are yet to file.

The deadline for submitting a 2022-23 self-assessment tax returns online is 31 January 2024. You should also be aware that payment of any tax due should also be made by this date. This includes the payment of any balance of self-assessment liability for the 2022-23 plus the first payment on account due for the current 2023-24 tax year.

If you miss the filing deadline then you will usually be charged a £100 fixed penalty which applies even if there is no tax to pay, or if the tax due is paid on time. If you do not file and pay before 1 May 2024 then you will face additional daily penalties of £10 per day, up to a maximum of £900. If the return still remains outstanding further higher penalties will be charged after six months and again after twelve months from the filing date. There are also additional penalties for late payments amounting to 5% of the tax unpaid at 30 days, 6 months and 12 months.

HMRC’s Director General for Customer Services, said:

‘The clock is ticking for those customers yet to file their tax return. Don’t put it off, kick start the new year by sorting your Self-Assessment. Go to GOV.UK and search ‘Self-Assessment’ to get started start today.’

If you are filing online for the first time you should ensure that you register to use HMRC’s self-assessment online service as soon as possible. Once registered, an activation code will be sent by mail. This process can take up to 10 working days. 

We would encourage our readers to complete their tax return as early as possible to avoid any last-minute stress as the 31 January 2024 filing date is fast approaching.

Readers are reminded that if the dividends they draw from their company, when added to their other income, exceeds the basic rate Income Tax Band, then much higher rates of dividend tax will apply.

The tax rates for dividends received (in excess of the current £1,000 dividend tax allowance) are as follows:

• 8.75% for basic rate taxpayers
• 33.75% for higher rate taxpayers
• 39.35% for additional rate taxpayers

Dividends that fall within your Personal Allowance do not count towards your dividend allowance and you may pay tax at more than one rate.

If you receive up to £10,000 in dividends you can ask HMRC to change your tax code and the tax due will be taken from your wages or pension or you can enter the dividends on your self-assessment tax return if you are registered under self-assessment. You do not need to notify HMRC if the dividends you receive are within your dividend allowance for the tax year.

If you have received over £10,000 in dividends, you will need to complete a self-assessment tax return. If you do not usually send a tax return, you will need to register by 5 October following the tax year in which the relevant dividend income is received.

If you earn over £100,000 in any tax year your personal allowance is gradually reduced by £1 for every £2 of adjusted net income over £100,000 irrespective of age. This means that any taxable receipt that takes your income over £100,000 will result in a reduction in personal tax allowances. Accordingly, your personal Income Tax allowance would be reduced to zero if your adjusted net income is £125,140 or above.

Your adjusted net income is your total taxable income before any personal allowances, less certain tax reliefs such as trading losses and certain charitable donations and pension contributions.

For the current tax year, if your adjusted net income is likely to fall between £100,000 and £125,140 you would pay an effective marginal rate of tax of 60% as your £12,570 tax-free personal allowance is gradually withdrawn.

If your income sits within this band, you should consider planning opportunities available to avoid this personal allowance trap by reducing your income below £100,000. This can include giving gifts to charity, increasing pension contributions and participating in certain investment schemes.

A higher rate or additional rate taxpayer who wanted to reduce their tax bill could make a gift to charity in the current tax year and elect to carry back the contribution to 2022-23. A request to carry back the donation must be made before or at the same time as the 2022-23 self-assessment return is completed i.e., by 31 January 2024.

HMRC’s self-assessment (SA) helpline will focus on priority queries from 11 December until 31 January. Whilst the helpline is focusing on priority calls in the run-up to the filing deadline, other enquiries will be directed to HMRC’s online digital services, including online guidance, digital assistant and webchat. 

This move has been in place over the busy period running up to the self-assessment deadline on 31 January 2024. HMRC says that the helpline advisers will focus on answering priority self-assessment queries that cannot be easily dealt with online. In addition, the helpline will aim to support the small minority of taxpayers who require extra support or cannot engage with HMRC digitally.    

HMRC has reported that the vast majority of self-assessment taxpayers use HMRC’s online services, with 97% filing online. Examples of queries that can be resolved much quicker online include updating personal information, chasing the progress of a SA registration, ending SA registration, and checking a Unique Taxpayer Reference number. 

Please call if you have any self-assessment queries that require assistance but cannot be resolved using HMRC's helplines.

If you are having trouble paying your tax on time you may be eligible to receive support from HMRC by applying for an instalment payment plan. An online payment plan for self-assessment tax bills can be used to set up arrangements for paying tax liabilities of up to £30,000.

The large majority of taxpayers, who are due to make payments on 31 January 2024, could qualify to implement a Time to Pay arrangement online.

Taxpayers that want to use the online option must have filed their latest tax return within 60 days of the payment deadline and intend to pay their debt within the following 12 months or less. Taxpayers that qualify for a Time to Pay arrangement using the self-serve Time to Pay facility online, can do so without speaking to an HMRC adviser.

Taxpayers with self-assessment tax payments that do not meet the above requirements need to contact HMRC to formally request a Time To Pay arrangement. These arrangements are agreed on a case-by-case basis and are tailored to individual circumstances and liabilities.

HMRC will only offer taxpayers the option of extra time to pay if they think they genuinely cannot pay in full but will be able to pay in the future. If HMRC do not think that more time will help, they can require immediate payment of a tax bill and start enforcement action if no payment is forthcoming.

The rent-a-room scheme is a set of special rules designed to help homeowners who rent-a-room in their home. If you are using this scheme, you should ensure that rents received from lodgers during the current tax year do no exceed £7,500. The tax exemption is automatic if you earn less than £7,500 and there are no specific tax reporting requirements. If required, homeowners can opt out of the scheme and record property income and expenses as usual.

To qualify for this relief, homeowners must be resident in the house whilst rooms are sub-let.

The relief applies only to the letting of furnished accommodation and can be used when a bedroom is rented out to a lodger by homeowners in their home. The relief also simplifies the tax and administrative burden for those with rent-a-room income up to £7,500. The limit is reduced by half if the income from letting accommodation in the same property is shared by a joint owner of the property.

The rent-a-room limit includes any amounts received for meals, goods and services provided, such as cleaning or laundry. If gross receipts are more than the limit, taxpayers can choose between paying tax on the actual profit (gross rents minus actual expenses and capital allowances) or the gross receipts (and any balancing charges) minus the allowance – with no deduction for expenses or capital allowances.

The Cost of Living support package has been designed to help over 8 million households in receipt of mean tested benefits. The details for Cost of Living Payments due in the 2023-24 tax year were published earlier this year and have recently been updated.

Eligible recipients will receive up to three Cost of Living Payments of £301, £300 and £299 during the course of the current tax-year. This includes those receiving pension credit and these payments will be made separately from other benefit payments. The first payment of £301 was made between April-May 2023 and the second payment of £300 was paid during August-September 2023. The third payment of £299 is due to be paid during spring 2024.

An additional one-off payment of £150 or £300 will be paid to pensioners during winter 2023-24. The Winter Fuel Payment is provided by the government to help older people keep warm during winter. The amount a pensioner will receive depends on a number of factors including their age and the age of other people living with them. You can receive a Winter Fuel Payment for winter 2023-24 if you were born before 25 September 1957. HMRC completed writing to eligible recipients, at the end of November, telling them how much to expect as their payment.

If you have taxable income of less than £17,570 in 2023-24 tax year you will have no tax to pay on interest received. This figure is calculated by adding the £5,000 starting rate limit for savings (where 0% of the interest is taxable) to the current £12,570 personal allowance. However, it is important to note that if your total non-savings income exceeds £17,570 then the starting rate limit for savings is unavailable.

There is a tapered relief available if your non-savings income is between £12,570 and £17,570 whereby every £1 of non-savings income above a taxpayer's personal allowance reduces their starting rate for savings by £1.

There is also a Personal Savings Allowance (PSA) that can be beneficial to savers. This allowance ensures that for basic-rate taxpayers the first £1,000 interest on savings income is tax-free. For higher-rate taxpayers the tax-free personal savings allowance is £500. Taxpayers paying the additional rate of tax on taxable income over £125,140 do not benefit from the PSA.

Interest from savings products such as ISA's and premium bond wins do not count towards the limit. And so, taxpayers with tax-free accounts and higher savings can still benefit from the relevant PSA limits.

Banks and building societies no longer deduct tax from bank account interest as a matter of course. Taxpayers who need to pay tax on savings income are required to declare this as part of their annual Self-Assessment tax return.

Taxpayers that have overpaid tax on savings interest can submit a claim to have the tax repaid. Claims can be backdated for up to four years from the end of the current tax year. This means that claims can still be made for overpaid interest dating back as far as the 2019-20 tax year. The deadline for making claims for the 2019-20 tax year is 5 April 2024.

The 'badges of trade' tests, whilst not conclusive, are used by HMRC to help determine whether an activity is a proper economic trade / business activity or merely a money-making by-product of a hobby.

Careful consideration needs to be given to deciding whether a hobby has become a taxable trading activity. The approach by the courts in using the badges of trade has been to decide questions of trade on the basis of the overall impression gained from a review of all the badges.

HMRC will consider the following nine issues as part of their overall investigation as to whether a hobby is actually a trade:

• Profit-seeking motive
• The number of transactions
• The nature of the asset
• Existence of similar trading transactions or interests
• Changes to the asset
• The way the sale was carried out
• The source of finance
• Interval of time between purchase and sale
• Method of acquisition.

Even if HMRC consider that the activities in question are a trade, taxpayers can make up to £1,000 per year, tax-free, from their hobby by claiming the trading allowance.

The marriage allowance applies to married couples and those in a civil partnership where a spouse or civil partner does not pay tax or pay tax above the basic rate threshold for Income Tax (i.e., one of the couples must currently earn less than the £12,570 personal allowance for 2023-24).

The allowance works by permitting the lower earning partner to transfer up to £1,260 of their personal tax-free allowance to their spouse or civil partner. The marriage allowance can only be used where the recipient of the transfer (the higher earning partner) does not pay more than the basic 20% rate of Income Tax. This would usually mean that their income is between £12,571 and £50,270 in 2023-24. For those living in Scotland this would usually mean income between £12,571 and £43,662.

Making a claim, could result in a saving of up to £252 for the recipient (20% of £1,260), or £21 a month for the current tax year. In fact, even if a spouse or civil partner has died since 5 April 2018, the surviving person can still claim the allowance (if they qualify) by contacting HMRC’s Income Tax helpline.

If you meet the eligibility requirements and have not yet claimed the allowance, you can backdate your claim to 6 April 2019. This could result in a total tax break of up to £1,256 if you can claim for 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23 as well as the current 2023-24 tax year. If you claim now, you can backdate your claim for four years (if eligible) as well as for the current tax year. Even if you are no longer eligible or would have been in all or any of the preceding years, then you can claim your entitlement.

HMRC’s online Marriage Allowance calculator can be used by couples to find out if they are eligible for the relief. An application can be made online at GOV.UK.