Not returned self assessment for over 5 years - advice?

Not returned self assessment for over 5 years -...

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Good evening!

My wife is an employee and is safely in the 40% tax bracket with a standard tax code for her personal allowance

For as long as I can remember I have nagged her to fill in a self assessment form on account of having several legitimate and mandatory business expenses to different professional bodies needed in order to work, the total she pays out each year is approx £1500. She has never been sent a reminder for self assessment, nor has she ever approached HMRC

Its not clear from the HMRC website what aggro, if any, she will get from them as and when she phones them up to ask to submit a return. It says apart from the standard £100 fine they charge £10 per day up to a maximum of £900 for late returns plus interest on any tax owed - this at least will be zero as they will certainly owe her

Any advice on how this will likely play out would be much appreciated, my man maths :) suggest she has overpaid £1000 each year for the last 8-9 years which is when she earned enough to be taxed at 40%, versus £100 plus the £900 for every year in fines as wel

Thanks in advance!

Replies (3)

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By mikeyban
16th Mar 2014 20:09

You only receive a fine if you have received a 'notice to file'.
Your wife has not so no fine.

Where are you based? You need an accountant to claim the correct reliefs.

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By mikeyban
16th Mar 2014 20:09

You only receive a fine if you have received a 'notice to file'.
Your wife has not so no fine.

Where are you based? You need an accountant to claim the correct reliefs.

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By taxhound
16th Mar 2014 20:15

overpayment relief claim or form P87

If she has not been asked to complete a self assessment return and does not owe any tax, there should not be a problem.

Rather than filling in tax returns, she can either make an overpayment relief claim or make a claim by completing form P87 for each tax year which you can find here:

http://search2.hmrc.gov.uk/kb5/hmrc/forms/view.page?record=lNKqI3HRKkQ&f...

You can claim for the last 4 years, but you need to be quick because the 2009/10 year will fall out of time on 5/4/14.  Years before that are out of time and you cannot claim.

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