Forest Hill & Honor Oak
Personal Tax Accountant in Forest Hill & Honor Oak
On a good salary and assumed PAYE had your tax covered? Once you pass certain income levels, it often doesn't. We help employed people in SE23 spot the charges and reliefs payroll can't handle for you, and sort them out properly.
What we help with
- Working out whether you now need to file a Self Assessment return, even though you're employed
- The High Income Child Benefit Charge, including whether it's better to keep claiming or opt out
- Pension contributions around the £100,000 mark, where the tax effect is at its sharpest
- Claiming the extra tax relief on pension contributions that higher-rate taxpayers often leave unclaimed
- Declaring side income, savings interest over your allowance, or rent from a room or second property
Why PAYE doesn't always cover it
PAYE is built to tax your salary correctly. It isn't built to know about your partner's Child Benefit, the interest on your savings, the pension contributions you pay privately, or the consultancy work you do at weekends. When those things come into play, HMRC generally expects you to tell it through a Self Assessment return, and it's your responsibility to register, not your employer's.
We see a lot of people in this position who have simply never had to think about a tax return before. The earlier it's picked up, the cheaper it is to put right.
The £100,000 trap
Once your adjusted net income goes over £100,000, you lose £1 of your tax-free Personal Allowance for every £2 above that level, until it's gone completely at £125,140. On that slice of income, the effective rate of Income Tax works out at 60%, before National Insurance. For parents it can be worse, because the same threshold is used to decide eligibility for Tax-Free Childcare and some free childcare hours.
The useful part is that "adjusted net income" can be brought down. Personal pension contributions and Gift Aid donations both reduce it, and a salary sacrifice arrangement through your employer reduces your salary itself. For someone just over the line, a well-timed pension contribution can recover the allowance, protect childcare support and build a pension at the same time. We'll show you what it does to your own figures before you decide.
The High Income Child Benefit Charge
If you or your partner claim Child Benefit and either of you has adjusted net income over £60,000, the higher earner has to pay some of it back through the tax system. The charge rises gradually and claws back all of the benefit at £80,000. It's the higher earner who owes it, even if the benefit is paid to the other partner, which is exactly how people end up with an unexpected bill and a penalty.
It's often still worth keeping the claim going even if you pay it all back, because Child Benefit claims protect National Insurance credits for a parent who isn't working. Stopping the payments while keeping the claim live is usually the better option than cancelling. We'll check which applies to you.
Working with us
Built around a working week.
If you commute from Forest Hill or Honor Oak Park into London Bridge or the City, you probably don't want to spend a lunch break on the phone to HMRC. Most of this work happens by email: you send your P60, any P11D, pension statements and details of other income, and we come back with a clear answer on what you owe and what you can claim.
If you'd rather talk it through face to face, our office is on Verdant Lane, SE6.
Common questions
Higher-earner tax questions, answered.
Common reasons are owing the High Income Child Benefit Charge, having untaxed income such as rent or freelance work, savings interest above your allowance, or wanting to claim higher-rate relief on pension contributions. HMRC's checker gives a quick first answer.
Tell HMRC as soon as possible. Coming forward yourself is treated far more favourably than HMRC finding it first, and the backdated charge can often be sorted out through a return for each year affected. We can do that for you.
Salary sacrifice reduces your salary before tax, so the relief is given automatically and there's nothing extra to claim for those contributions. Personal pension payments you make yourself from taxed income are different, and that's where higher-rate relief often goes unclaimed.
Often, yes. HMRC generally allows claims going back four tax years, so it's worth checking if you've been a higher-rate taxpayer paying into a personal pension for a while.
Personal tax for employed higher earners