You filed your self-assessment tax return online well before the deadline – and then HMRC inform you that you didn’t need to bother! An infuriating waste of time for approximately 400,000 taxpayers every year.
The UK’s changeable workforce is cited as the main reason that so many people are annually taken out of self-assessment. Shifting employment and financial status means that taxpayers need to be able to negotiate in and out of self-assessment status frequently. Factors such as selling off property and other assets or moving out of self-employment can also effect taxpayers’ categorisation.
One consequence of our somewhat confusing taxation system is that, of the estimated 10 million tax returns filed on the 2015 deadline, 400,000 of them are not needed by HMRC.
Their spokesperson explained; “We automatically review the self-assessment system to ensure only those who genuinely need to complete a tax return have to do so. Anyone who thinks their circumstances have changed so that they don’t need to complete a return should let us know.”
