Once again, a big thank you to our clients who managed to send us all of the documents requested on our Checklists.  Surprisingly, some clients did not look at the previous year’s schedules that we sent to them when we prepared the previous year’s return.  Perhaps more worrying has been the insurance industry’s failure to address the issue of preparing a certificate that could be used for a tax return.  The certificate should show: Gross Premiums Paid, Net Premiums’ Paid, and the Tax Year.  The Revenue has sometimes asked us, as accountants, to produce the paperwork used to prepare the Return, and so certificates are a valid and essential part of the documents on our checklists.  Clients are respectfully reminded that they must insist that the proper documentation is received from their third party bodies.  Often Insurance Companies have trotted out “valuation” and “statements” to their policyholders.  These are useless for Tax Returns.  If your Insurance Company fobs you off with this technique, then resist it. We managed to obtain tax refunds for some clients by insisting on proper certificates, as these clients had Pension arrangements under the “old style” Retirement Annuities rather than Personal Pension Policies.  Premiums for the “old style Retirement Annuities” were unchanged from 6 April 2001.  It was the Premiums on “Personal Pension Policies that were reduced on 6 April 2001.  Some Insurance Companies asked their policyholders to “just sign here” to keep the same level of premiums as before the change. It is dubious if they told the policyholders that this was their tax relief that they were signing away.   Bank Interest Certificates also are needed as these show the figures for Gross, Tax and Net and the year.  Because of this administrative change, we had to discontinue issuing our TRIG forms [Tax Return Information Gatherer] that we had previously sent out for some many years.  By using our checklists, for the seventh successive year, most clients were aware of the July 31 instalment, and could budget for their future tax bills.  The January "bunching" of liabilities is in point here.

As foreshadowed in last year’s Newsletter, the Child Tax Credit did prove to be a nightmare.  You might recall the awful publicity generated around 6 April 2003 because the government’s (or was it the Revenue’s?) computers could not handle things.  There was also a window of claiming before 6 July 2003 otherwise a full three full month’s of this “credit” would be lost.  So if anyone has a “child” born before 6 April 1986, and you have not claimed this “credit” from the Government (either “on line” or through the telephone), then do so immediately. We can assist with some of the relevant data, but most of the questions would not have been on our files, as they did not relate to your tax affairs.  If Child Tax Credit proved awkward, consider what is following.  From 6 April 2003, payments directly into the “carer’s” bank account for the now re-named Children’s Tax Credit occurred. Did we get the full details about your children that we drew your attention to?Also on the checklists was Pensioner’s Tax Credit.  This was effected from October 2003.  As proud people, many Pensioners find it difficult to “accept charity”.  Also the forms are over-long, and contain questions that would raise eyebrows.  Again, that’s politics.