'Should I be in Self Assessment?' notice.

JodieR

Has everyone seen the bright red 'Should I be in Self Assessment' notice which is accompanying the notices to complete tax returns?
It seems to be ambiguously worded - is it saying that if you phone the number and it turns out that you don't need to be registered for self assessment that you won't need to complete a 2011/12 return? Or just that they'll make a note not to send you a return for 2012/13?
And it includes that controvertial 'Were you a company director?' question too... why is it never simple?!

TyneandWear

Just for the record - re SA for directors, - I have a sole director client who incorporated in April 09.
He is also in entirely separate employment. He did his own Nil CT return for Y/e April 2010, as the company had no
income or expenditure.

In Y/e April 2011 he traded profitably, but had no income from the Company, either in the way of salary or dividend. We did a CT Return but no personal SA. The resulting SA non filing penalty was successfully appealed. The letter
from HMRC said:-

"As a Director with no income from this source, a SA tax return does not now need to be completed"

JodieR

Yeah, thanks, I'm aware that company directors don't need to complete a return unless it's requested but what's happened here is a client of mine has 2 directors - Director A has a small self employment too so has always completed a return, Director B hasn't needed to file a return for a few years. Director A has now received this 'should I be in self assessment' letter and phoned Director B in a panic saying that he (B) should have been completing returns as he's a company director, so I get an email from director B all in a flap that I've got it wrong. All sorted now but it's hassle I can really do without!

I'm more interested to find out if HMRC can now 'un-issue' a return which has already been issued for 2011/12 - I know they've never been able to do so in the past but the way this is worded implies that they now can.

TyneandWear

Interesting question. Have someone else who's now non resident. In Jan we sent in a nil return
purely to avoid having to appeal a penalty. Also a separate letter, pointing out that as no longer
resident he shouldn't need to need to complete further returns. In their reply received last week they
finally confirming he won't need to, although he may receive one for 2011/12. If so just to ignore it if
one is sent.

In that case, I wonder if they'll issue a non filing penalty anyway.

deanshepherd

I thought it was pretty clearly worded and a very sensible inclusion this year.

They will indeed remove clients from the SA system, if they can answer no to all the questions, without having to complete a 2011/12 return.

Unfortunately they will not be doing so for anyone who answers yes to the company director question. That does not mean that every company director then needs to complete a tax return.

JodieR

deanshepherd wrote: »

I thought it was pretty clearly worded and a very sensible inclusion this year.

They will indeed remove clients from the SA system, if they can answer no to all the questions, without having to complete a 2011/12 return.
.

Well that's very interesting and as it's true I take my earlier comment back! Thanks for confirming.

deanshepherd wrote: »

Unfortunately they will not be doing so for anyone who answers yes to the company director question.

oh well, can't win 'em all!

PGM

I got the letter it also says you need to do a SA if you get more than 2.5k in untaxed incime or rental income. There was a recent thread saying rental income under a certain value can be collected by them amending your personal allowance amount. Along with the director issue its a bit misleading

deanshepherd

I would agree that it would be misleading if it was sent to everybody as it would infer that anybody who is a director has to do a tax return.

However, this is only sent to people who are already in the self-assessment system, so it is telling people there is an option to get out of the system if they meet this exit criteria.