How do you sort out your post?

[EastEnder]

I wouldn't get audited - I'm PAYE

Au contraire....

Paying tax via PAYE is no guarantee the IR will leave you alone.

I do freelance work on the side, in addition to my main job (for which I'm PAYE), and as such I have to fill in tax returns every year.

If the IR ever had any reason to suspect that you were earning more than directly from your job, they'd have no hesitation in auditing you. That's why it's so important to keep hold of pay slips and P60's.

 

[Orang Utan]

If this is the case, and you don't have your statements, what can you do?

 

[EastEnder]

If this is the case, and you don't have your statements, what can you do?

Hope that you employer's kept copies?

When it comes to this stuff, I know from bitter experience that the onus is squarely on the individual.

It's your responsibility to retain important paperwork.

Kind of makes of sense - otherwise everyone, guilty of anything or not, would just say "errr, sorry, I lost those bits of paper ages ago..."

 

[Orang Utan]

Hope that you employer's kept copies?

When it comes to this stuff, I know from bitter experience that the onus is squarely on the individual.

It's your responsibility to retain important paperwork.

Kind of makes of sense - otherwise everyone, guilty of anything or not, would just say "errr, sorry, I lost those bits of paper ages ago..."

Surely it should be the law to keep statements then? It seems rather unfair that one should suffer an audit and not know that one's supposed to keep their statements.

.

 

[Orang Utan]

Hope that you employer's kept copies?

Why would your employer have any of your statements anyway?

 

[butterfly child]

I couldn't really vote for any of the options.

If I'm home, when the post comes, I sort through it, putting my husbands to one side (unless he's in, in which case he gets it passed to him) and opening mine.

If I'm not at home, it waits until I've come in, and gone to the toilet (!) but I still do the same routine.

FWIW, I don't open the bank statements or credit card bills (cowardy custard) but I guess I'll have to start doing that now I've a seperate, lone bank account.

 

[nogoodboyo]

Surely it should be the law to keep statements then? It seems rather unfair that one should suffer an audit and not know that one's supposed to keep their statements.

.

I think it is the law in fact.

 

[Orang Utan]

I think it is the law in fact.

Why did no one tell me?

 

[nogoodboyo]

Why did no one tell me?

I dunno. I didn't keep some things, but then I had to a tax return and didn't have what I needed. At that point I noticed - somewhere, not sure where - something from the Revenue saying I had a responsibility to keep various bits of crap for x years. I had to get duplicates.

 

[geminisnake]

If this is the case, and you don't have your statements, what can you do?

IIRC it costs you a small fortune to get your bank to print out your statements

It really would be a good idea to start holding onto them, doesn't take up much space.

Sorry, hope I haven't freaked you out or anything, just thought you should know.

 

[Orang Utan]

I have a mild phobia of paperwork - is that a good enough excuse for not keeping any?

 

[Looby]

Why would you need bank statements to do a tax return?

P60s and stuff if you're employed and then receipts/invoices if you're Self Employed surely?

Anyhoo, you will all think I'm very bad but I open ALL the post.
Nathansears went through a stage of putting mail in drawers or forgetting to tell me about important letters and as I make all the phone calls and do the budget for the month I open his post too.

There's never anything but bills and statements and we have a joint account so nothing's really private anyway.

I used to do the same as Dub, run away.
My overdraft from when I was 20 caught up with me 2 years ago, I will be paying £10 a month for eternity.

 

[EastEnder]

Why would you need bank statements to do a tax return?

P60s and stuff if you're employed and then receipts/invoices if you're Self Employed surely?

You probably wouldn't need bank statements - they'd want proof of what you'd been paid or invoiced for, not where the money had gone.

 

[geminisnake]

Why would you need bank statements to do a tax return?

P60s and stuff if you're employed and then receipts/invoices if you're Self Employed surely?

I don't know the ins and outs of it, but a friend had to supply bank statements

 

[Stig]

I open anything with my name on it immediately, and file it under bank, invoices, other crap or recycling.

(I have every bank statement since I opened the account, every payslip ever, and most bills ever, all in a big box. i'm good, me.)

Anything with William on it, I balance carefully on the teetering pile on the table for the big bi-monthly sort-out.

Very occasionally, I'll miss something, and it will be carefully placed, on it's own, on MY side of the table, to unspokenly show: 'LOOK! unsorted Stig mail? hmmm? Hmm?'

 

[shakespearegirl]

If you are self employed you have to keep bank statements. This is so they can check the money going in particularly but also going out. Just in case you are not declaring invoices, or living above your declared income.
You also pay interest on savings so they want to check this.
IR is starting to get more PAYE people to do tax returns and once you are on the system you are on it for life.

 

[tangerinedream]

I just don't bother opening it, till literally no more mail can go in my letter box (I have a lock up type one as I have a flat) then open it, by the bin. If any bills need paying, I ring up and pay them, everything else goes straight in the bin. Never look at charity stuff, credit cards etc - burn my bank statements and that's about it. Once in a blue moon I get a postcard and I pin that up on the wall.

 

[Looby]

If you are self employed you have to keep bank statements. This is so they can check the money going in particularly but also going out. Just in case you are not declaring invoices, or living above your declared income.
You also pay interest on savings so they want to check this.
IR is starting to get more PAYE people to do tax returns and once you are on the system you are on it for life.

I work for the Inland Revenue and I am pretty sure it's not common practice to ask for bank statements, it's probably if there are suspicions of fraud.
Your point about the savings is a good one, I hadn't considered that but I think you get a yearly statement for savings anyway.

Less people are Self Assessment now as the limits for PAYE have been changed.
You can now earn 100k not 40k before you have to be SA, you can have expenses, property income and benefits like company cars dealt with through PAYE up to quite a large limit.
We are trying to get people out of SA as it's more work for us and them.
If you do a tax return and you think you shouldn't have to, if your income can be dealt with in another way then we will not send you any more tax returns unless circumstances change.