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Where Taxpayers and Advisers Meet

Why do HMRC calculate tax due to the penny?

someone
Posts:692
Joined:Mon Feb 13, 2017 10:09 am
Why do HMRC calculate tax due to the penny?

Postby someone » Thu May 09, 2019 11:18 am

It always strikes me as bizarre that HMRC rounds everything to the most advantageous (to the taxpayer) pound but then calculates the tax due to the penny instead of also rounding that down.

This year as my P60 income was xxxxx.36 - rounded down (so saved me 16p in tax), tax paid was xx12.05 which got rounded to xx13.00, i.e. I saved 95p in tax due to that rounding.

I'm not complaining, my "to the penny" spreadsheet has me owing 188.61 while the online submission has me owing 186.95 so I'm up by 1.66 due to all these roundings but it just feels wrong to be quoting a final result to the penny when the inputs are all to the pound. (The remaining 50p or so must be an effect of rounding on giftaid but I haven't tried to do the calculation to confirm)

(I appreciate that the bias is all in one direction so HMRC can do the final calculation to the penny without risking ever overcharging anyone)

someone
Posts:692
Joined:Mon Feb 13, 2017 10:09 am

Re: Why do HMRC calculate tax due to the penny?

Postby someone » Thu May 09, 2019 11:46 am

I've actually done the calculations :-)

95p due to rounding up P60 tax
16p due to rounding down P60 income
15p due to rounding up gift aid
40p due to rounding down untaxed interest.

Which is exactly £1.66

Nice :-) especially as my calculations are done in a way that bears no relation at all to the way HMRC does theirs...


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