Why has HMRC's guidance shrunk?

Why has HMRC's guidance shrunk?

Didn't find your answer?

Please forgive me for being unobservant but I have belatedly noticed that the tax return guidance notes became a lot shorter a couple of years ago. Here are a few examples:

The main guide: 33 pages for 2014, 12 pages for 2015

Employment pages notes: 8 pages for 2014, 4 pages for 2015

Self-employment (full) notes: 22 pages for 2014, 14 pages for 2015.

If there was an HMRC announcement explaining these abridgements or any discussions about them on this website then I also failed to notice these. I do not believe for one moment that tax got simpler and therefore it would seem HMRC became less helpful and in the example below, actually misleading. Does anyone have any information about the change in the length of the guidance?

What prompted this post is that my client’s employment terminated during 2015/16 and he received a lump sum. The first £30K was not taxed and the remainder was included within his P45.

The 2016 guidance for box 1, page E1 says “Use the figures from your P45 or P60 to fill in box 1. If you left a job during the year, put the figure from the ‘Total pay in this employment’ section on your P45 in box 1”. The 2016 guidance for box 5, page Ai2 says to include redundancy pay etc in excess of £30K. These instructions combine to tax twice the excess over £30K.

If the compensation had been received in 2013/14 or earlier then there would be no double taxation as the guidance for these years says to deduct the lump sums from the P45 figure. It cannot be right that taxpayers have to look at guidance on filling in the 2014 return and ignore the guidance for 2016 in order to get their 2016 returns correct.

Replies (2)

Please login or register to join the discussion.

By SteveHa
27th Sep 2016 16:10

HMRC are trying to direct everyone to .gov.uk for guidance, meaning that they can save paper and money by restricting what goes out in paper format.

Of course, we all know how reliable .gov.uk is, but that's a different matter.

Thanks (0)
avatar
By ruth.julian
28th Sep 2016 13:31

Since the paper guidance is the same as on the .gov.uk pages, is it also trying to save web space?

Thanks (0)