NEWS

State Pensioners Simple Tax Assessment

HMRC has announced details of a new simple assessment system.  Its aim is to end the traditional tax return process and make life easier for millions of taxpayers by pre-populating returns with existing data from other sources.

From September 2017, this option will apply to two groups:

• New state pensioners with income more than the personal tax allowance in the tax year 2016-17
• PAYE taxpayers who have underpaid tax and who cannot have that tax collected through their tax code.

All existing state pensioners who complete a tax return because their state pension is more than their personal allowance will be removed from self-assessment in the tax year 2018-19.

Taxpayers in these categories will no longer be required to fill in a return with lots of information.  Instead, HMRC will use data it already holds to calculate what tax is owned.

HMRC is sending out P800s or a simple assessment letter (PA302) with a tax calculation to taxpayers from September.  These contain their income from pay, pensions, state benefits, savings interest and employee benefits.

Taxpayers should check the information is correct.  If it is they can pay online or by cheque by the deadline in the letter.  If they think it is incorrect they have 60 days to contact HMRC.

If you are a client of Morris Crocker and have received a tax calculation from HMRC in this respect, please let your usual Morris Crocker contact know.

27/09/2017