Tax return - can I leave questions blank?

[TwoCertainThings]

I'm doing my own self-assessment tax return this year, after several years of having an accountant do it. I live overseas so am not taxed on foreign income.

There are several questions that the accountant left blank in previous years (presumably because I'm not taxable on them), such as foreign interest received.

Am I OK to just leave these blank?

I don't mean questions where the answer is nil. I mean questions where the answer is not nil, but where I know the answer does not affect my tax liability.

(I realise I should have queried this previously, but now I'm doing my own return I guess I'm looking for reassurance. Is this accepted/acceptable practice, or has my accountant been cutting corners before?).

Thank you to anyone who knows!

Why would an answer not impact your tax liability if the answer isn't nil? Surely you give HMRC the information and then they determine the tax liability if necessary.

I guess what I'm saying is, either the income in question relates to what HMRC is asking about (in which case you need to declare it) or it's actually not what they're asking about (in which case the answer is nil). I would be very wary of leaving answers blank.

I'm not a tax expert but I tend to play "better safe than sorry" when it comes to HMRC.

Disclaimer: IANA Accountant (but I've done my Self Assessment for the last 12 years).

It depends on the question. I made the mistake with my first tax return of putting 0 in every box (e.g. assets, depreciation) instead of leaving them blank and it came back with a load of errors that the value had to be at least 1. It caused all sorts of problems fixing it because at the time if you'd typed in the box you couldn't then leave it blank (I think they have at least fixed that nowadays).

If that's the sort of thing you mean then you can and should leave it blank. If you're asking if you can leave blank a direct question such as "what is the name of your business" or "turnover this year" or "did you use any tax avoidance schemes?" then no you can't.

No. If the answer isn't NIL you have to put the figure in

Can you give an example of where the answer isn't nil but it doesn't affect the tax?

Thank you. Three examples:

1. in the SA109 (Residence, Remittance Basis etc. form), most questions were left blank. e.g. the question "How many ties to the UK did you have in 2022–23?".

2. in SA100, "Untaxed foreign interest (up to £2,000)" is blank. I guess because the UK doesn't tax non-residents on their non-UK source income.

3. in SA 100 "Foreign dividends (up to £2,000)" is blank. I don't recall my accountant asking me about this at all.

I leave blank the boxes that don't require me to fill them in (they usually say optional next to them).

For example I have rental houses. One question is "how many properties". It's optional, so I leave it blank. Never been queried on it.

None of their business in my mind - I declare how much I earn from rent. What difference does it make to them if I own 2 or 5 etc?

So I would say if optional then leave blank.

In my case, becuase the UK doesn't tax non-residents living overseas on their non-UK income. But there are some questions that ask about that, presumably becuase the form is designed also for UK residents, where it would be relevant.

If the info was all easy to gather then I'd just fill it in (not hiding anything). But it will take me a few hours at least and if the field is never used and there's no expectation that I do it, then I'd rather not.

My accountant leaves all the irrelevant areas blank

In an ideal world the self-assessment form would have, near the start, a question about your residency status, and then if you state non-resident, only offer you the questions regarding UK income sources. But ...

Hope you can fill it in to your satisfaction. Following what your accountant has done in previous years, assuming your circumstances haven't materially changed, would seem to be a valid justification if anything were queried.

Are you non res? If so the ties question might be critical to that - depending on what test you are non res under.

I would always put the info in to the best of your knowledge in case of future enquiry and to save the heart ache of that process.

I had the same issue and ended up using www.install-turbo-tax.com to do mine. It helped make more sense of what needed filling in and what could be left blank. Some of the optional boxes aren't actually relevant for everyone, so if the system doesn’t flag it, you’re usually fine. I left a few blank too, and it all went through with no problems.

Chartered tax advisor here - yes fine to leave answers blank if not relevant but be careful to fill in the residence pages correctly. What residence test are you non-uk resident under and I can advise on which boxes to complete.

The system will throw up an error when you try to submit if you've left any questions blank that HMRC want an answer to. No point in putting zeros in every box, but there will be some boxes programmed whereby an answer IS required. As I say, the system will tell you and won't let you submit if you've left a box blank that they require to have an answer in it, even zero.

I'm non-res like you, and only report UK-sourced income. If there's non-UK income then the answer is leave blank because it's not reportable.

But in the non-res section - you need to do one of the ties tests (I do the 3rd automatic one) just to validate that you are non-res. For example, I have a home in the UK so there's always one tie. But everything else is firmly negative. Also as a non-res I have records of where I was "at midnight" every day for the last 25 years.

I use TaxCalc to fill in my tax return - you just input the numbers and it does the calculations.