Completing a self assessment form on elderly father's behalf, help!

[Melfish]

Hi

This year I'm having to complete a self assessment tax form on behalf of DF, who is rather doddery. I've recently got PoA for him, but this was only a couple of months ago. I've never had to do a tax return before, eek!
I have no idea why he has to complete a return as all his income is taxed at source. I think it may be due to a historical source of income in the form of trusts and rent but this was wound up about 4 years ago. He seems to fall under the £25k limit that his coding notice warned about. Does anyone know how we can get the tax office to investigate whether he needs to complete these forms in future?
The 2nd thing is, I am happy to complete this year's tax return but I need to collate all his dividend slips in order to fill out that question. Sadly I can't find all of them for the year, some companies only send 1 slip for the year, other irritating ones seem to send them quarterly and we are missing a few. It seems that they are all taxed anyway, according to the ones I have found, should I estimate what the amount should be? I have called the company which administers them but they said it will be an additional £17 per duplicate dividend slip which is a total rip off. I have already seized the ones for the new tax year as I don't have this palaver next year!
Thanks and sorry to go on, but I am rather confused.

First of all - relax.
you have most of the month to do it on paper - and months if you do it online.

get all his papers together

• state pension
• private pension
• savings interest
• dividend slips
• check his bank statements for any more divi slips
• if you know which companies he has shares in you can often check on their websites to see what the divi was

once you have all that together then you can start to do a return

personally I'd recommend you register him for online (pretend to be him) as then the system checks all of your figures
AND there is a box to request that returns stop if he does not owe tax ....

TalkinPeace2- thanks for your reassurance

I think online is the way forward, and I shall be paying close attention to the box to tick to stop the returns.

Poster MrAnchovy on here is a rock solid source of information and guidance
also be willing to ask the excellent folks on this
www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=30d4d19c161abdea4675e991ea469869&f=55
forum

Can I recommend you register to submit the tax return online and then invest £25 in a copy of the TaxCalc personal taxation software? I've used it for years, as do my retired parents, and it leads you through the forms by the hand, skipping the bits that don't apply and offering helpful advice the rest of the time. BTW... for a few missing dividend slips, if the numbers involved are quite low, don't worry about omitting them. My experience is that HMRC are so grateful that we self-assess that they only query returns when the discrepancies are significant.

Not much to add except:

You don't need the dividend vouchers, if the dividend received is £X then the gross amount of the dividend to enter on the tax return is £X divided by 0.9, then take this figure and multiply by 0.1 and this is the notional tax credit for the return. I think the online version of the tax return contains an optional pop-up box that will do this calculation for you, or if you do go for Taxcalc you can add on a dividend database for six quid which will do the dividend calculations and help you spot any dividends you might have missed.

Once he has been 'marked' for a tax return for last year it is almost impossible to get this changed, but as TIP says you can tick a box to prompt them to reevaluate this for the current year. Follow this up with a phone call sometime before the end of the tax year to check they have taken him off the list. But first check the position - it could well be that he needs to fill in a return to get a tax refund, particularly if he has pensions from more than one source.

Mr Anchovy and CogitoErgoSometimes
Thank you also for your help
i'm more reassured about the missing dividends, and will attempt to work out the gaps. He's got a letter from one of the companies who administer the shares today asking for online details so I shall be filling them out so I can keep track of them online.