This isnt for a client but is for me!
As part of my mortgage application Santander asked for tax overviews and SA302s for the last three years. I duly went in to see the mortgage person clutching tax overviews downloaded from HMRC, Taxfiler tax computations which agreed to the HMRC tax overviews together with four years accounts. Year end is 31 December, remuneration mixture of salary and dividends. He took one look at the Taxfiler printouts and said he couldn't accept them as they were not the HMRC versions. I explained why I couldn't produce HMRC SA302's and showed him the Taxfiler computations agreed to the tax overviews. No luck - he told me I would have to get an accountants certificate completed. I then wearily told him I was an accountant.
According to the list of mortgage providers who accept either a copy of the tax calculation (SA302) printed from the HMRC online account or a tax calculation printed from commercial software used to submit returns, Santander is listed.
What would fellow AWebbers recommend as the best approach to resolve this - go back and show him that he can/should accept Taxfiler computations or get another accountant to complete the accountants certificate and risk the next hurdle of explaining why the figures on the tax computations are different to the figures in the accounts?
I came out with a headache and it is still banging!
Many thanks
Mark
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Replies (15)
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Take the TaxFiler SA302s along with the HMRC tax year overviews back in & suggest the mortgage person speaks with a grown up who knows what they are talking about.
Take the TaxFiler SA302s along with the HMRC tax year overviews back in & suggest the mortgage person speaks with a grown up who knows what they are talking about.
100% agree with above.
And also ask him to refer himself to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (now known as UK Finance) and to revert to you with an apology when he receives their instruction to accept your TF prints.
Or just go somewhere else.
Which is what I did, eight years ago, when they offered me an appointment with a mortgage adviser in a month's time.
Thank you all for your replies.
I will go back to him and share the link to the document that shows Santander should accept the TF calculation.
It is so frustrating and means that after all the joys of January and looking forward to a relaxing weekend I am faced with having to prepare my accounts to 31 December 2017 just to satisfy the muppet. I know 4 weeks after the year end and still not prepared - must be slipping!
I will let you know how I get on :(
Mark
A little bit of an update.
As suggested by fellow Awebbers I resent my tax calculations from TaxFiler together with the link to the list of lenders who signed up to accept figures from third party commercial tax software. After a few phone calls to head office and scratching of heads over what it meant they finally accepted the calculations in lieu of the SA302s.
I prepared my accounts to 31 December 2017 and got an accountants certificate signed off by an accountant friend which was duly rejected because even though she was only extracting 5 figures from the accounts across the years she hadn't actually prepared the accounts. The phrase 'I'm an accountant' was becoming tiresome.
Anyway, decided they didn't need the accountants certificate but would need the statutory accounts to 31 December restating into tax years to match the tax calculations!
So spent time doing that.
Its a shame this exercise is all about filling in boxes and there is a lack of comprehension. All they keep saying is 'we haven't dealt with anything like this before'.
Anyway, will wait and see what they come back with. No doubt it will be 'Computer says no'.
Have any other accountants had these sort of problems?
Mark
You realise that the 'underwriters' will now probably reject the application on the basis that the accounts don't tie into the SA302s?... but would need the statutory accounts to 31 December restating into tax years to match the tax calculations!
After you get your mortgage through put in a complaint. The people you were dealing with clearly have no idea what they were on about.
I have provided a schedule showing the breakdown showing accounts year to tax year for sales, net profit, salary and dividends and clearly show these agreeing to the SA302 equivalents for each tax year. To add insult to injury they will not accept dividends from retained profits so if the net profit in one year is lower than the dividends taken they reduce your income to the net profit regardless of what the SA302 shows.
It's the strange look you get when they realise your accounts year is not the same as the tax year. I can think of very few clients with an accounts year of 5 April and certainly no company clients.
We will wait and see but he only had 4 boxes for each tax year to fill in so I don't hold out too much hope.
To add insult to injury they will not accept dividends from retained profits so if the net profit in one year is lower than the dividends taken they reduce your income to the net profit regardless of what the SA302 shows.
Gosh, that's very sensible for a bank.
On the other hand, makes you wonder why they want an SA302.
Hats off to the Santander underwriters they understood the information provided and appreciated the reconciliation from the statutory accounts to my tax calculations.
Mortgage agreed - which is a great relief!
Thanks for everyone's advice and comments.
At the end of the day, personal interests aside, it does show that lenders should/do accept SA302 information produced by commercial tax software such as TaxFiler even if you have to point it out to them and refer them to the guidance.
Mark
do the same arguments apply for PTP software tax computation? what do we say to mortgage brokers who request SA302 and HMRC say they don't provide?
See if they're on the list of folk who are committed to accepting tax calculations and statements of account.
Same process for all commercial software. Mortgage brokers will need to get up to speed. Supply software SA302 & print of Tax Year Overview from HMRC site.