Tax Assessment Puns

I've done one of these a few years running now, and this time I wrote a walkthrough as I did it.

> I'm writing this guide for a few reasons. For one, it might be useful to someone, possibly me in future. For two, if I make a mistake, someone might call me out on it and then I can correct it. And for three, it gives me a venue to complain about things I think aren't very good about the online submission form and also our tax system.

If you're interested, feel free to check it out. I haven't shared it anywhere else yet, I figure this community has a good chance of catching any mistakes I made.

Last year it was around $270k, this year it’s $340k+. I know it’s mad times here but that’s quite the leap isn’t it?

I built my home in 2019 and since then I get my property tax bill from the city every 6 months and it still says <Value> Residential Vacant Land @<Rate> Per Half Year. This means that I'm paying far less property tax than I should be. I called the city's property tax department in 2020 about this and they said it's a property assessment issue and they'll just wait until the assessment department gets around to updating it. Now in 2022 my property tax bill still says for vacant land. The funniest part is that the city mails this bill to me at my "vacant land" address.

Am I responsible for making the city correctly assess my house? Is there any possibility they could come after me for the previous years when they finally recognize this mistake? Could this cause issues when I go to sell my house?

How likely can I mount a tax assessment appeal based on the fact the property is assessed at 2 million and I'm going to buy it for 600k?

I have never done my tax return before, and I realised some cryptocurrency gains in the 2020-21 tax year that I know I have to report by the end of January. I've signed up for self-assessment online and just trying to go through it now... and it looks really hard? There's lots of language I don't understand (is crypto a listed or unlisted share?! - none of the HMRC or help tabs clarify this).

I tried to fill in the 'worksheet' option but it seems overly complicated and I don't think it works when I have lots of different buys and sells (as well as same day buys and sells) that will mess it all up. So I think I need to just attached my calculations at the end?

Is there any software that helps you do this? I've kept meticulous records of all the buys and sells in anticipation of this submission, and to date have used http://www.cgtcalculator.com/calculator.aspx to give me what I owe. Would a print out of that be sufficient to attach or does it need to follow some kind of format?

Any help appreciated! It's too late to get an accountant!

Edit: so it's not really the software I'm after, as the above link appear to calculate what I need to know (at least I hope) - but I don't have any sense of how to fill the HMRC steps - please see comments below.

Edit: thank you all for your replies, turns out I don't have to pay any taxes based on my earnings!

Can someone confirm how property tax works? I assume the city sets a total revenue target expected from property tax revenue, and then each property is allocated a property tax amount pro-rated against total value of all properties in the city.

So if the city set a property tax revenue budget of $1 billion for both 2021 and 2022, if every property went up in value by the same 20%, theoretically your property tax owed would be the same in 2021 and 2022, correct?

You would only pay a different amount if the total budget changed or if your house went up/down more (percentage wise) than other properties, correct?

And got £105 rebate!

Holy shit, it jumped 30%! What's more, houses on our street that have more square footage and bigger yards have lower assessments.

Hi everyone,

I've just filled in my 2020/21 tax year self assessment and as it stands I owe the tax man £6000. I'm quite surprised by this as I have only earned money through PAYE this year and I assumed all of this income would have been taxed at source. Alas the figures on my P60 really do add up to me owing this money. I think it's because I was paid partially in NYSE RSU's each month which fluctuated wildly in value throughout the year.

When I look at my total income for the year I'm firmly in the 45% tax bracket, so I was wondering if I could reduce my tax bill by paying into a SIPP. If I understand them correctly I think I could pay in £20,000 of my own cash, for which I would get £25,000 added to the pension. But It also looks like that would reduce my tax bill by ~£6000. So I'd effectively be paying £14,000 for a £25,000 pension contribution.

I've never made pension contributions before apart from the standard salary sacrifice 5%, but this seems like it might be a good place to start.

I've read online that pension contributions can be backdated by up for 4 years. Does anyone know if it would be possible to attach a pension contribution I make now of £20,000 to my 2020/21 tax year so I can wipe out the £6000 I owe to the tax man?

Does anyone know, through personal experience, how much their tax assessment changed when they added a screened porch to the rear of their home? I am looking at adding a 12x12 screened porch. The tax assessors office could not give me an answer regarding how much this may change the assessment. I am in the suburbs of Charlotte.

I need some help understanding the tax rules. In the 2020/2021 tax year I made a net profit of £1297 with £15,650 Realised Profit and £14,353 Realised Loss.

Income- I made £9,970 from Employment

I’m just confused whether I need to file any paperwork. With my trades I have downloaded my T212 tax year trades and I have 95 pages of trades. 90% of my transactions are day trades. I understand I need to pay before Jan if I owe anything. I also filled in the SA1 form since I am not Self employed just in case I need it.

Some help would be greatly appreciated.

Hey all, I've finished filing my tax return but the amount HMRC want me to pay seems a bit much!

So a bit of background I'm employed ( PAYE), and I do a separate bit of self employed freelance on the side, but I'm not earning crazy amounts from either.

So filling in my self assessment I've included figures from my 20-21 p60. (£ 20026.00 income
£ 2211.00 tax paid)

My freelance profits are only £10611 but I'm supposedly needing to pay £3294 from this.

Is this right? Seems way too high considering the amount of tax I've already paid. I've filed a tax return for a few years now, feel pretty confident doing it myself, as this income is only from a handful of jobs and regular software expenses going out. Is there a box I've completely missed?

Thanks!

Hi all, I have a full time job as well as a limited company where I am a director. This is my first year with a limited company so I am a bit confused on this.

I only put through a small amount of work through my limited company (Hence why it's probably not worth having an accountant). During the 20/21 tax year I only took £1588 dividends from the company which is at the 0% tax rate still. My tax year for my full time job is calculated by hmrc as it is PAYE. Do I still need to do a self assessment?

Thanks for the help!

Blessed be the bean counters.
Went from owing about a grand to being owed it.

Hi, so basically I won a bid and just finished the mortgage commitment. They have me at 1600 a month with property taxes and all included. However the home a few years ago was 185k. I’m paying 300k for the house now. Is that all factored in already with this commitment? I understand property taxes raise every year, just afraid now of having my mortgage ramped up because of unforeseen future property tax raise to adjust to the buying price. Property taxes should already be adjusted no?

I’m sure we’ll get a disproportionate number of self-assessment tax return posts over the next month or so, so I apologise in advance for this – however, I hope some of the below questions will be applicable to some of my fellow FIRE readers and this will therefore be helpful to more than just me.

1. Do you need to file tax return simply because you have investments in General Investment Accounts?

• I understand the easy answer to this is no if your gains are less than the applicable Dividends/Capital Gains allowances.
• Notwithstanding that point, I have a have an GIA with MoneyFarm and a holding of FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund – Accumulation with VanGuard.
• My consolidated tax certificate for MoneyFarm includes references to overseas interest on overseas securities and overseas dividends for overseas unit trusts and OEICS.
• I understand you need to submit a tax return if you have foreign income, so would the above foreign dividends and interest count as foreign income? I haven’t got a consolidated tax certificate from Vanguard but is there anything specific about the Vanguard fund which means you need to submit a return irrespective of the value of dividends/capital gains achieved (e.g. because of foreign income)?

1. How do you obtain the correct distribution figures for FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund – Accumulation in order to correctly calculate your dividends?

• The only holding in my Vanguard GIA during the applicable tax year was the Global All Cap (Accumulating) but I have no consolidated tax certificate which easily sets out the dividends – in hindsight, I appreciate I should’ve opted for the Income version.
• I understand that I may be able to glean the relevant information from the Distribution Table in the annual report (page 165) but how do you then apply that to your holdings? I made 10 different buy transactions on 10 different dates so it doesn’t seem immediately obvious how best to calculate this.
• Alternatively, have other people received a consolidated tax certificate in respect of Global All Cap (Accumulating) holdings? I’ve contacted Vanguard just in case as that would be the most straightforward, but I suspect this may be unavailable.

1. Do you need to include capital gains calculations in tax return when the net capital gains figure is a negative?

• I assume the answers is “no” unless you are setting off against chargeable capital gains but my Moneyfarm consolidated tax certificate included reference to a taxable ga

This is my first year completing a self assessment tax return and I am only doing so because I now qualify for the higher income child benefit charge. It all seemed fairly straightforward and the amount to repay in child benefit makes sense.

My confusion is that the self assessment tax return is calculating that I owe around £430 towards my student loan repayment however my student loan has since been paid off in full. Does anyone have any advice as to how I avoid paying this as my balance is 0?

I am a higher rate (40%) tax payer on PAYE and am a UK tax resident.

I have New Zealand shares that paid dividends and paid their non resident tax rate of 15% in their tax return.

I earned £3960 gross of dividends (which is above the £2000 threshold)

I paid tax of £601 to the NZ tax system (I used the exchange rates HMRC provides) on that 15% rate.

From what I've read its advisable to claim the foreign tax relief, but HMRC says to refer to the double tax treaty. When I look at that treaty in the dividend section there is nothing about the max rate of relief available, just tax charged should not exceed 15%. In the Self Assessment if one claims relief it ranges from 0 to 25%. I also have a very small amount of foreign interest to put in as well which I paid non resident tax of 10% as per the treaty but will exclude it from this post for abit more simplicity.

When I go to the tax calculation page if I don't ask for tax relief (but input the tax paid amount) I have a bill of £573.07

If I 'guess' that the tax relief I can claim is 15% (which isn't really a way to go about it, not sure if this is something I can call and ask HMRC about?) then it says I have £594 in relief and a tax bill of £174.40, which is better, though I had kind of hoped the point of the double tax treaty was to avoid double tax! I'm guessing this is the 40% higher rate tax kicking in on income that means I still have to pay additional tax in the UK despite having paid tax already in NZ?

The amount is in an awkward middle ground where if it was higher I'd consider getting an accountant to do it, but the rates I have seen quoted have ranged from around £150 to £400 for a return.

Edit: Sorry I didn't really ask a question - I am wondering if the workings I have done above are correct, specifically the 15% selection (and whether to call HMRC about it) or have I completely misunderstood the tax relief under the double tax treaty and is there another option via the self assessment tool?

I’ve been a happy Chicago homeowner for 5.5 years now, enjoying my low south side taxes. I just got my reassessment in the mail, and my assessed value went from $68k to $140k. I know it’s probably still on the reasonable side, but can someone more knowledgeable than me help me understand what this means for my taxes and what my next options are? Is there a way for me to calculate how much my taxes are going to go up? I know there is an appeals process; is there anyone who can give me the quick and dirty on what I should do? Thanks!

Hi All,

Should I use the gross or net figure for pension contributions in my tax return?

Hi all,

In my haste to make sure I was doing everything by the book I registered for self assessment but I didn’t start earning outside of PAYE until after April this year. My understanding is that my first self assessment will be due in January 2023 rather than next month.

Do I need to do anything now to alert HMRC to this? Or can I just not complete the self assessment and wait until next year?

I’ve tried searching here and online but couldn’t find any guidance unfortunately.

Thanks all!

Letters are in the mail. You can also view it online at https://paol.snb.ca/?lang=en%22target=%22_blank. My house is now assessed 8K higher than I paid for it a year ago, thanks to a $38K assessment bump. Some in my small neighborhood went up over $50K.

Hope no one was barely getting by before. :(

https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/news/news_release.2021.10.0684.html?fbclid=IwAR0AH4x4QO6qAg1HMFUn6PHGUP5m4D1VfoU_CRbU8NNUtLPOdgYQs7LNjE0

OK so I've let DWP know, and they now deduct 60p from my universal credit for every pound I earn with deliveroo.

Is the next step to fill out a self assessment tax form? Asking as really confused, never been self employed before

Filling in my tax return for 2020/21 and I know they have stopped the mortgage interest tax relief you could claim in previous years and replaced it with a flat 20% tax credit.

I’ve read through some examples and it seems that as a higher rate tax payer, by including the mortgage interest tax relief, you could end up paying more tax. Is it better to just omit the mortgage interest from the tax return?

And if not, should this be submitted under ‘other allowable property expenses’ on the online form?

Thanks!

I need some help understanding the tax rules. In the 2020/2021 tax year I made a net profit of £1297 with £15,650 Realised Profit and £14,353 Realised Loss.

Income- I made £9,970 from Employment

I’m just confused whether I need to file any paperwork. With my trades I have downloaded my T212 tax year trades and I have 95 pages of trades. 90% of my transactions are day trades. I understand I need to pay before Jan if I owe anything. I also filled in the SA1 form since I am not Self employed just in case I need it.

Some help would be greatly appreciated.

Update: All they needed to do was put a note on my record. No self assessment required.