Talk Money Week 2023

Integrity Accountancy provides a range of service benefiting business and business owners in a variety of sectors.

Over this next week, we have Talk Money Week 2023, which is an annual campaign that encourages open conversations about personal finance, money management, and financial well-being. We will be proving help and support to individuals during his time, primarily helping them when dealing with HMRC. We will provide details regarding the HMRC App, that can help boost and manage your finances.

First off, how do we use the HMRC app:

First step is simple which is downloading the app which is free.
Then follow the instructions on screen to complete the app setting, where you will be asked to sign in again.
Users will need to know their Government Gateway user ID and password to in, but after that can just select facial recognition, a short PIN or choose to use their fingerprint to get in quicker. If they don’t already have an ID and password, this can be created on the same sign in page.
As we can see it is a simple set up that’s required that doesn’t take too long and has simple steps with procedures to follow which already is demonstrating a easy and understandable introduction.

What does this HMRC new app provide?

Employee’s – Claim tax relief on employee expenses
Tax – If you have paid too much tax, it guides you on how to claim a tax refund.
Families – Claim and manage tax benefits.
Married or Civil Couples – Claim marriage allowance

Join us Integrity Accountancy Services over the next couple of days where we go over each service and analyse how they may be beneficial in depth.

Tip 1 – Support for employees – claim tax relief on employee expenses

Did you know you and your employees may be able to claim tax refunds on work-related expenses? Making a claim online via GOV‌‌‌.UK takes minutes and guarantees that you get 100% of the money back, if eligible.
Use the online claim service to check eligibility and a full list of work expenses, including:

Uniform and Clothing
Buying work related equipment
Professional fees, union membership and subscription
Using their own vehicle for work travel (excluding journey from home to work)

You can claim tax relief by phoning HMRC if you’ve already claimed the same expense type in a previous year and your total expenses are less than either £1000 or £2500 for professional fees and subscriptions. You must use the HMRC form to make a claim. HMRC cannot accept claims made on any other version of the form. you must claim tax relief by post if you’re claiming either on behalf of someone else or for more than 5 jobs.

You cannot use this service if you:

are claiming on behalf of someone else.
complete Self-Assessment tax returns (except current year claims)
are claiming for expenses over £2,500.
are claiming for more than 5 different jobs.

An advantage of claiming expenses would be that this reduces your taxable income and the tax you must pay. However, you’ll need to submit a claim by post using HMRC’s postal form. This may be time consuming, and postage is the only form HMRC accept.

If you would like to know how to claim back taxes through a letter formally, please do contact us on 0121 777 5361 where we give you free consultation resolving your queries.

Tip 2 – Support if you’ve paid too much tax – claim a tax refund

If you feel as if you have paid too much towards you tax, claiming a Tax Refund is easy through the HMRC app. You may feel you have paid extra tax on the following income:

pay from a job.
job expenses such as working from home, fuel, work clothing or tools.
a pension
a Self-Assessment tax return
a redundancy payment
UK income if you live abroad.
interest from savings or payment protection insurance (PPI)
income from a life or pension annuity
foreign income

How do I get my HMRC tax refund?

Your tax calculation letter will tell you if HMRC will send you a cheque and, if so, you will receive this by post.

What do I do if I am too late for a repayment?

If you think you have overpaid tax in tax years that are closed to claims, there is a rule known as Extra-Statutory Concession B41 which can allow HMRC to repay tax for those earlier years.

How long does it take to get a refund?

This a common question, the answer is usually somewhere between 5 days and 8 weeks.

You can get a refund on any taxable income you’ve paid taxes on, including:

Pay from your current or previous job.
Pension payments.
Income from a life or pension annuity.
A redundancy payment.

Tip 3 – Support for families – claim and manage Child Benefits

Claiming your child’s benefits can be done 48 hours after you have registered your child for birth. If you were eligible for Child Benefit before HMRC got your claim form, and you have not claimed the benefits straightaway, your claim may be automatically backdated up to a maximum of 3 months from when you have applied.

What do I need to apply?

your child’s birth or adoption certificate
your bank or building society details
your National Insurance number
your partner’s National Insurance number if you have one

However, if your child was born outside the UK:

your child’s original birth or adoption certificate
your child’s passport or the travel document they used to enter the UK

Any documents you send will be returned to you within 4 weeks.

Who should make the claim?

Only one person can claim back for the child’s benefits, it cannot be both parents, so this will need to discuss among them who is the better parent to claim. The person who claims will then get National insurance credit towards there state pension but only if there not working.

How can you claim?

There are three ways of claiming for your child’s benefits, and these are:

Post – This may take a longer and will need to be filled at the child benefit office.

Phone – you will need to phone Child Benefit helpline on 0300 200 3100 where they will require National Insurance number or Child Benefit number.

HMRC App – Fill out the Child Benefit claim form, then send it to the Child Benefit Office. It can take up to 12 weeks to process a new Child Benefit claim.

You get Child Benefit if you’re responsible for bringing up a child who is:

under 16
under 20 if they stay in approved education or training

How much is Child Benefit?

If you’re eligible, you’ll get £24 a week for your first child and £15.90 a week for any children after that.

Tip 4 – Support for couples married or in civil partnerships – claim Marriage Allowance

Marriage Allowance lets you transfer £1,260 of your Personal Allowance to your husband, wife, or civil partner. It’s free to apply for Marriage Allowance on with the HMRC app. This can reduce their tax by up to £252 every tax. To benefit as a couple, you need to earn less than your partner and have an income of £12,570 or less. Your partner’s income must be between £12,571 and £50,270 (£43,662 in Scotland) for you to be eligible. You can backdate your claim to include any tax year since 5 April 2019 that you were eligible for Marriage Allowance. If your partner has since died you can still claim.

What do you need to apply?

You can apply for Marriage Allowance online. It’s free to apply online with the HMRC App. If both of you have no income other than your wages, then the person who earns the least should make the claim. If either of you gets other income, such as dividends or savings, you may need to work out who should claim.

If you cannot apply online, you can apply:

Through Self-Assessment online if you’re already registered and send tax returns
by filling in Marriage Allowance from MATCF and sending it to the address on the form

How would your personal allowances change?

HMRC will give your partner the allowance you have transferred to them either:

by changing their tax code – this can take up to 2 months
when they send their Self-Assessment tax return

If your new Personal Allowance is lower than your income after you’ve made a claim, you might have to pay some income tax. However, you might still benefit as a couple.

How you tax code changes:

You and your partner will get new tax codes that reflect the transferred allowance. Your tax code will end with:

‘M’ if you are receiving the allowance
‘N’ if you are transferring the allowance

Your tax code will also change if you’re employed or get a pension.