To ask if you have a self assessment tax bill of this, whether you must have earned a lot?

[Gennr]

Self assessment resulting in 70k worth of tax to pay by 31 jan 2025. This is just for the last tax year and nothing carried over etc. Surely this means actual earnings/income must be pretty high? I’m not good with this sort of thing.

But a tax return wouldn’t be an indication of how much child maintenance is due. The tax calculation may not all be from income.

If the person is a director and receives dividends, and/or is self employed, which seems likely, the tax liability to be paid by 31st Jan can include a significant account of next year's tax to be paid upfront/on account, so it could very well include this.

1/2 of it could be on account - but still would be a decent income

No, you are wrong if it's their first one. As half of it will be on account, it could easily be only 100k or so.

Some of it will be under payment from the current tax year and some payment on account towards the next tax year and it may not take into account payments paid on account from last year, so can look too high.

That's very possible. The assumption is that you earn roughly the same each year, so the calculation will include all of the 23-24 tax year, say, plus a payment on account (half as much again) for the year 24-25.

So it could be £50k due for this year (which has already been paid) plus £25k for next year.

Really dependson how they pay tax. If employed and on paye and an additional 70k then someone has either messed up a tax code or there's been some other asset disposal or similar
If self employed or not on paye then could be different story

As others have pointed out as a rough calculation you need to earn around c£185k to be paying £70k in tax if it was all from employment.

But you pay self assessment tax in 2 payments in January and July. So this might only be half their tax bill.

If this is someone complaining about having to find £70k to pay their tax at the end of January then yes they have earned a lot at some point but that might have been an exceptional year. But that doesn’t mean they’ve kept enough cash around to pay it. If this is the case they should have been more switched on and kept the cash but to be honest lots of people who should know better don’t and it’s not an uncommon problem.

Having just filled out my own self assessment as a self employed person the way hmrc communicates your tax calculation is a bit shit - the first thing you see is how much you owe for Jan, but this will not take into consideration any tax you have already paid and also includes payment for the following year (calculated under the assumption you will earn same as this year), and is almost always more than is actually due in Jan. I always have a bit of a heart attack as it is such a large number.

in reality, I have already paid the last year’s tax, but that only gets credited 3 days after I submit the form. If this year’s income is tracking lower than last you can also ask to reduce what you pay in advance.

In answer to OP's initial question about a self assessment indicating a high income, I fill one in, on my 90 year old Mum's behalf, every year.

She is not on a high income. She has a state pension, a very small occupation pension, some savings and a few shares. What appears to have triggered the need to do a self assessment is that she receives a tiny (she left that country at 23) state related pension from her country of origin. HMRC lump this in with the 'foreign income' category thus requiring a return.

Some people have suggested I should contact them because it can't be cost effective to process the return. However, my view is that engaging with HMRC in this way is likely to involve a pile of effort on my part, and, anyway, the return means she gets a small tax rebate every year (I literally have no idea why).

So no, a self assessment doesn't mean a high income, it just means there's probably some form of non PAYE income involved, even if it is very small.

It might also include annual allowance pensions tax - because of the way the calculation works for how DB pensions increase in value people in defined benefit schemes can sometimes end up owing quite a bit of tax without their earnings being massive.

Thanks everyone