Tax muddle

It felt really cold again today with a hard wind blowing in gusts and occasional rain showers, but not cold enough for frost or snow. After breakfast I drove to Penarth with Clare to collect Owain's saxophone from the music shop where it's been given a service and found to be in good shape. That I took her to her study group meeting, went home and cooked lunch.

Walking in such conditions was quite an effort. I needed to get out but didn't manage early enough in the day to avoid walking in the dark. 

Since I submitted my on-line tax return, I've been getting nagging reminder emails from HMRC which I couldn't make sense of, saying I should register as self-employed and remember to pay tax by the deadline on the amount I owed. I had a clear recollection of asking for outstanding tax owing to be payed the adjusting my PAYE coding, as I have done for the past fifteen years that I can recall. 

Something had to be wrong, so I went back to review the form I had submitted, and realised I'd made a mistake, by not understanding that I should declare myself as 'Employed' although I'm retired and living on pension income. This was the cause the email nags about registering for self employment.

When I'd made the correction on the declaration form some extra boxes popped up on the form allowing my to enter my income from employment pensions, the HMRC doesn't refer to them as such on the form. I wondered before why it didn't ask for this income initially, and ended up assuming that HMRC already knew what my PAYE income and tax paid amounts were. If they do, they insist on you declaring it. Tax accountancy I will never understand. Anyway, corrections made, form confirmed re-submitted. 

Hopefully the email nags will stop now. I found it quite upsetting, and getting to grips with this issue took up much of the day, a phone call to Rufus in a panic, and googling answers which still barely made sense before the penny dropped. HMRC is master of the game, inventing the language and rules whether or not anyone understands them. If you don't tough. You get into trouble. Hopefully, writing this down now will help me remember what to do next year. It's a mistake I never made before. Maybe I was just lucky, or too careless this time.

I've been told that I don't have to submit an annual return any longer, but as I have been receiving some fees that are untaxed at source, I've always felt that I should declare them and pay tax, so I continue to enter this additional amount in a box for extra information, and it does get picked up by the system. It was a relief to get things straight in the end.

After supper, I watched a couple more episodes of 'Crossing Lines' on my laptop and some how getting to bed much later than I should have.