Self Assessment help needed please

[bubbakin]

Hi, my husband falls into the 'child benefit high earning' bracket for tax yr 2013/2014 so I registered to do self assessments. Appreciate, as a result of this, we need to do a return for y/e 2012/2013 (although his earnings were under limit to receive child benefit for that tax year) which we've just done online & it comes back as we owe tax. Just a bit miffed as in July 2013 HMRC wrote to DH stating they've reviewed his income for 2012/13 and due to a benefit in kind of £1k he has underpaid tax of £400.60 so they issued a new tax code to collect this shortfall. In the section of the tax return for underpaid/overpaid tax for 2012/13 we initially put the £400.60 but it came up that he owed £800 tax (payable by 31/1/14) We then amended this under paid amount to £0 (as surely he's already paid that through his amended tax code this year) & it came back as owing £400.00 by 31/1/14. So how can he still have underpaid tax for 2012/13 if they've already reviewed & amended his code??? Feel like we've opened a can of worms we could have done without particularly as they want it back in 1 go by end Jan!! Thank you

There's a box on the tax return that says 'underpaid tax for 2012/13 included in your tax code for 2013/14' - this would be the box you need to complete (box 8 on SA110). Unfortunately I don't know where you need to go on the online return to find that box but I would guess it's somewhere where the underpaid/overpaid tax for 2013 is.

Thank you for responding. When we put the underpaid tax of £400 in it came out as us owing £800 tax, how can this be if he's paying off the underpaid tax through his tax code? Also, surely if they reviewed his income tax in July 2013 (when they wrote to say underpaid tax & will take through payee code) it can't be 'out' now as the figures we're using are same ones they used in July review! Ta

It sounds like the amount ended up in the 'earlier years' tax collected through 2012/13 tax code' box instead. You might have to call the SA helpline to find out where to enter this. Unfortunately I've only ever used third party software to do tax returns so can't help you in more detail about how to enter it on HMRC's software.

Just wanted to close thread-I spoke to hmrc today & they explained dh doesn't need to do sa this year as they've already reviewed 12/13 income, so they've cancelled request for self assessment this yr & we'll do them from fin yr 13/14 onwards. So no tax due! Hurray!! Thanks for your help.