Self assessment - child benefit and Mileage relief confusion!

[iwan1985]

Hi,

Could someone offer some advice on completing self assessment online please? The figures I’m seeing on the system are not what I was expecting so could do with some help before submitting my return.

I’ve had to register for the first time for tax year 16/17 as my taxable income was just over £50k last year and my wife receives child benefit for our daughter. As part of the SA process, I also want to claim some mileage allowance relief.

Details are as follows.

Taxable pay per P60 - £50,141.26
Tax paid £9,317
Tax code on P60 - 1084L

I travelled 7976 business miles in my own car for which my company paid £978.15, which is a rate of 12.3p per mile. I believe this means I can claim 40% relief on 45p – 12.3p.

So 45-12.3 = 32.7
32.7p x 7976 miles = £2608.15
£2608.15 x 40% = £1043.26

No matter what figures I enter in the self assessment forms I don’t seem to land on the above figure. I was expecting the figure to be a little less than the £1043 as there’s a minor adjustment to be made for the child benefit. However on completion of the SA form it says that I have overpaid £1,104.20 in tax which is more than I expected?

I really therefore have two questions –

1. What figure should be entered in the ‘Business travel and subsistence’ expenses section of the self assessment form? I have been entering £2608.15 (which they round up to £2609) as this is my actual ‘outlay’ for travel costs – is this the correct figure to be entering here?
2. As a result of the above expenses, it appears that according to the SA calculation that my taxable income was actually under £50k, and I’m assuming that this is why there’s no mention in the SA calculation of a deduction for Child benefit?

P.S – could interest received impact on this? I’ve entered £460 which I received as gross interest on my Santander 123 account. I don’t see how this means that I’m entitled to a bigger rebate than expected.

The following is from the calculation page on the HMRC SA website – I’m guessing the key question really is whether I’ve got that £2,609 correct for my mileage expenses. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Pay from employments £50,141.00
minus allowable expenses £2,609.00
Interest from UK banks, building societies and securities etc £460.00
Total income received £47,992.00
minus Personal Allowance £11,000.00

Total income on which tax is due £36,992.00

How we have worked out your income tax
Amount Percentage Total

Pay, pensions, profit etc. (UK rate for England, Wales and Northern Ireland)
Basic rate £32,000.00 x 20% £6,400.00
Higher rate £4,532.00 x 40% £1,812.80


Savings interest from banks or building societies, securities etc.
Starting rate £0.00 x 0% £0.00
Nil rate £460.00 x 0% £0.00

Total income on which tax has been charged £36,992.00

Income Tax due £8,212.80


minus Tax deducted
From all employments, UK pensions and state benefits £9,317.00
Total tax deducted £9,317.00

Income Tax overpaid £1,104.20

[bd6759]

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Interest doesn't affect the compuation at all.

Your tax code was 1084. A "normal" code would be 1100. That is the difference. Do you know what deductions were inclduded in your code?

[iwan1985]

Thanks for replying.

How strange with the tax code. Same thing has happened this year it seems. According to HMRC my tax code should be 1150L but on my payslip it's 1134L. Spoken to my payroll colleagues who can't explain it and claim that they download whatever info HMRC have provided them with. Must be a mistake somewhere as I don't have any taxable benefits that I'm aware of!

[darthblingbling]

My guess is it's a reduction for HMRC to claw back some of your CTC via your tax code. You should have received a letter from HMRC outlining how they calculated the code. I'm not sure if your employer gets the same letter or they just get told the code to use as it may be a privacy issue if they tell your employer about your other taxable income or benefits.

[robbob]

How strange with the tax code. Same thing has happened this year it seems.

This tends to happen with coding notices if at some stage in the past the employer has not activated a code correctly or missed a new code. The standard operating procedure (todays friday game at work is use as many annoying phrases as you can) when the new tax year starts is simply to uplift last years code by the relevant increase in the pa - this ensures that if the wrong code was used last year then the wrong code is also used this year - that probably makes perfect "no brainer" sense to hmrc that the employer would never ever use an out of date or wrong tax code.

[darthblingbling]

Child benefit, not CTC sorry.