Happy Birthday Personal Tax Account

Happy Birthday Personal Tax Account.

Exactly one year ago today, HMRC launched its Personal Tax Account portal.

The aim was to revolutionise how people access details about their tax returns, benefits, national insurance contribution record and more.

If you already are registered for self-assessment or VAT or other and have you own Government gateway user ID and password, you can easily set up your Personal Tax Account.

Inside the Personal Tax Account you can:

• Check your state pension credits, likely state pension at retirement and any shortfalls
• Complete Self-Assessment tax returns
• Update/amend tax credits circumstances
• Claim any Income Tax refunds and get them paid straight into your bank account
• Transfer Marriage Allowance (if you earn less than the Personal Allowance) and transfer to a spouse/civil partner.

HMRC claims that In its first year, the Personal Tax Account already has more than seven million users and the portal has processed

• 1.6 million Income Tax refunds, worth more than £800 million
• Handled 1 million tax credit renewals
• 100,000 people have checked or updated their company car details
• 1.6 million people checking their tax estimate
• 2 million people checking their state pensions.

Comment

It makes total sense for us each to have a combined HMRC and Social Security dashboard.  In addition, whilst it will help to reduce HMRC/DWP costs, it will also no douby highlight to people that you cannot hide.  Government departments talk to each other and we believe the next stages should be to incorporate:

• Property purchase and stamp duty records
• Shareholding and dividends reporting
• Bank account interest received integration.

We know it is a little like “big brother” is watching, but if we are all law abiding citizens paying our taxes then we have nothing to worry about.  Next week we will post a video showing the Personal Tax Account in action and how to register, use it and navigate it.