A4.306 Simple assessments

A4.306 Simple assessments

For 2016/17 and subsequent years, HMRC has the power to make an assessment of an individual's or trustee's income tax and / or capital gains tax liability without their first being required to complete a self assessment return, where HMRC has sufficient information about that individual (whether it is received from the individual or a third party) to make the assessment¹.

HMRC has, since September 2017, removed the need for two groups of taxpayers to complete a tax return:

1.  

   •     new state pensioners whose state pension is more than the personal tax allowance for 2016/17 and the tax due cannot be collected through their tax code, and

2.  

   •     PAYE customers who have underpaid tax and who cannot have that tax collected through their tax code

All existing state pensioners receiving state pension over their personal allowance who were within self assessment and received a notice to file a self assessment tax return for the tax year 2016/17 may have been taken out of self assessment for 2017/18, and received a simple assessment instead².

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