A matter of interest
THE Inland Revenue estimates that about 1 million people have registered to have their bank and building society interest paid gross when they should not have done.
A total of 7 million people have registered for gross interest, and a further 7 million may be entitled to register but have yet to do so.
To qualify, total taxable income should be below the level of tax allowances. But surveys show that many people have registered when at least part of their interest should be subject to tax.
These people are still able to reclaim some of the tax paid but they cannot get the interest gross at the outset.
There will be penalties for those thought to have set out to deliberately defraud the Revenue, but those thought to have made a genuine mistake will not be treated harshly. These are likely to include pensioners who did not realise that they had to count their pension as part of their income.
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