Tax Codes, and Self Assessment, etc
There was a bit of a fuss about six months ago, when HMRC sent out new tax codes generated by their super new computer system... the one with the little wooden balls that slide along the wire frame... you know, they come from the Early Learning Centre...
According to my new coding, my (pension), income suddenly had propelled me into the 50% tax bracket... if only... per what others have said, I found that a polite and patient telephone call can be rewarding. It transpired that, in transferring the data to their new system, they had pulled across a corrupted file of my pension details, corrupted as to its name, but not as to its payments, and saved it about three times so that their system thought I was getting multiple pensions...
I do all my (and the Mehmsahib's), tax using the on-line system. It's pretty straight forward, provided one works one's way through it step by step. I have already 'done' the return on an Excel spreadsheet, and, at each step of entering data into the on-line system, I get it to calculate the tax owed, and check it against my spreadsheet. That way, if I make a mess up, I know where it is likely to be. The help desk people really are, if you ring them up and ask where stuff is supposed to go. And a big advantage of doing it on-line is that if one is owed money by HMRC (as the Mehmsahib sometimes is), then it appears in one's bank account within a few days of clicking the send button...
For the few folk with pensions originating overseas, remember that you pay tax only on 90% of the income...
And keep meticulous records... AFAIK, they are entitled to ask you up to seven years back...
And... I didn’t realise that thegypsy was Korean... he didn't confess to that the last time I was in touch with him...