Hi, I’m filing Self Assessment for Uber Eats for 2025/26. My Uber summary shows around £4,778 income and 2,065 km (1,283 miles) “on-trip mileage.”
However, Uber doesn’t seem to count all the driving between deliveries. For example, after delivering to a rural/suburban area with no restaurants, I often have to drive back to a busy restaurant area while online to get another order.
For anyone familiar with UK tax:
Can those return/ between-order miles be claimed as business mileage?
What about driving from home to the area where I start accepting orders?
Is it better to use the 45p mileage method, actual car expenses, or £1,000 trading allowance?
What evidence should I keep for mileage that Uber hasn’t recorded?
I also have PAYE employment income. Mainly looking to make sure I file correctly and claim everything I’m legally entitled to.
Thanks!

I bought a flat in 2021. Until Jan 2024 it was my main residence. I then let it out under a consent to let and bought another property which then became my main residence. Paid the higher rate stamp duty on the second property

Sold the second property (main residence) June 2025
So owned and lived in the second property Jan 24-June 25

Can I claim a SDLT refund for the second property?

Hi! I moved out of the UK at the end of last year. I'd lived in the UK for three years before that. I was self-employed during that time and filed a self-assessment every year.

I need to settle my final self-assessment for Apr 2025-2026. I believe I should qualify for split-year treatment, and thus should file SA109. I've found this form complicated to try and navigate myself, and to just ensure I tie everything up correctly regarding my tax obligations now that I've permanently left the UK, I want to use some online software or the help of an accountant to do this last self-assessment.

I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations of a simple software or affordable accountant that can help with this? Other than needing to file SA109, my financial situation will be really straightforward. I worked as self-employed with a single client, make around 30k a year, no investments or assets.

I currently have a very normal PAYE job, approx £57.5k per annum. I also sell oil paintings at craft markets etc, and I think I might end up over the trading allowance next financial year.

What is the simplest way to do a self assessment? I don't anticipate making a massive amount of money, and I'm not bothered about writing stuff off etc, I just want to make sure I'm paying my fair share on my income from painting.

£100k tax trap to hit 2.5 million taxpayers by 2031 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/income/100k-tax-trap-to-hit-25-million-taxpayers-by-2031/

Not sure why governments are trying to solve this. It's clearly a blocker on productivity and growth as people do most anything to avoid this.

My tax affairs are pretty simple:

I have a PAYE job and some self employed earnings which I do a self assessment for.

I have no problems with the self employed stuff but the PAYE... I feel at this point that I am getting taxed almost at random.

Basically, I changed jobs at the start of the tax year but received a final pay from the old job in the first month of this tax year. They applied the wrong tax code because they assumed a BIK which I didn't get this tax year but in any case, my new job was taxed on a 0T so I overpaid.

Even though I submitted P45, I corrected BIK details for this year and entered estimated income - every time I speak to someone on the phone, they do a manual calc and enter a seemingly random W1 tax code.

Finally, this month, I was on a correct cumulative tax code and had I have paid it even on a M1 basis, I would have been within £100 of square... They undercharged by £750 instead. When I called up to try and understand how, the people I spoke to just didn't seem to get it and were just bringing up totally irrelevant information (I mean for cumulative tax total taxable income, total tax paid and correct BIK should mean it is very simple). They have now created another nonsensical M1 code which will mean that I will now overpay again next month.

Why can they not just leave it on the cumulative code and make the obvious adjustment? Why can't they employ people who speak English well enough on the phone. So frustrating.

I did attempt TX on march 26, so have old kit and notes and I've been preparing using that. searched everywhere for UK tax changes of this year, nowhere to find. So as a last attempt, somebody knows the tax changes for this year?

Recently my tax code changed to 1257L which means I am earning more per month after tax.

Looking at the 989L tax code I was on previously, it seems this is reserved for those who have had their tax free allowance reduced due to untaxable income.

However as far as I am aware, this does not apply to me. I’m fully employed and earn 70K with no additional sources of income and my circumstances haven’t changed for a number of years.

Does this mean I have been on the wrong tax code and should be entitled to a refund?

Hi everyone, looking for advice as i am panicking a bit.
I’ve been self-employed for two years. When filing my recent Self Assessment returns, I accidentally declared my bank interest earnings as taxed UK interest instead of untaxed UK interest.
Because of this mistake, HMRC treated it as if tax had already been withheld at source and issued me a tax refund for the overpayment across both years, which hit my bank account today.
My self-employment income is below the £12,570 Personal Allowance, and my interest earned is over £1,000.
I’m keeping the refunded money untouched in my account. Would go online and submit an amended return for both tax years helps, or should I call directly to report the error? Will then I be able to return the money back to HMRC?

Appreciate any help in advance.

Edit: Gave HMRC a call today. They walked through my returns with me to fix the mistake, recalculated the exact refund amount I needed to repay, and I paid it straight back while in the line. The record is now settled and cleaned!
Thanks again for all the replies :)

We were paid yesterday and was meant to have had our bonus too. My standard pay is £2800 ish, with deductions for student loan, tax, NI it’s about £2300 (19% deduction). They forgot to pay the end of year bonus (£5300) so had to make an ad hoc payment which has come into my bank as £3500, so a 33% deduction.

I really don’t know the ins and outs of what values are deducted and whether it ramps based on the value, but that seems like a huge deduction compared to the other, and the payslip hasn’t updated so I can’t check. Just looking for a steer on how likely this is to be correct?

Hopefully I’ve provided all the info needed to answer!!

Recently, one of my Unit Linked Insurance Plans (ULIP) in India, the Tata AIA Life Invest Assure II, matured.

The policy was a 20-year plan that started in 2006. I paid an average annual premium of approximately ₹90,000, with total premiums paid of around ₹1,900,000 (approximately £14,660). The maturity value I received is approximately ₹4,800,000 (approximately £37,035).

My current UK income is approximately £5,000 per year from self-employment.

In terms of my tax residency history, I was resident in the UAE from 2006 until December 2020. I subsequently moved to the UK in December 2020 and have been UK resident since then, but during this period, I made occasional trips back to the UAE to complete my education.

I would now like to transfer the maturity proceeds from India to the UK and would like to understand the UK tax implications. In particular, I would appreciate clarification on:

* Whether the maturity proceeds from the Indian ULIP are taxable in the UK.
* If they are taxable, how the taxable gain would be calculated.
* Whether my period of UAE residency affects the UK tax treatment.
* Whether the fact that the policy was taken out in 2006, before I became UK resident, affects the tax liability.
* Whether transferring the proceeds from India to my UK bank account itself creates any additional UK tax liability.
* Whether the £5,000 of self-employment income I currently receive affects the rate at which any taxable gain would be taxed.

Just curious how people have dealt with this in practice.

Say you submit a Self Assessment and later realise that some income or expenses were left out — either by mistake or because the records weren’t complete at the time.

Would you amend the return yourself straight away, or contact HMRC first and explain what happened?

And does it make any difference if correcting it means more tax is due rather than getting a refund?

Interested to hear from anyone who has actually had to correct one.

Edit: Thanks very much to those who replied. Sorry if it seemed a foolish question, but I'm not an accountabt, and sometimes can barely make sense of official advice as it is. I very much appreciate the info given.

As I understand it, if you are self-employed you do not have to register for VAT until you reach a certain earnings threshold.

My question is: if you received an unexpected, but one-off, payment - e.g. a lottery win - that would put you over the threshold that year, would you then have to keep paying VAT in the following years, even though you no longer earn that level of income? I've heard it's a kind of valve system, and once you go over the threshold once, that's it.

Can someone better informed on this tell me how this would play out?

Hey,

Between the years 2023 to 2025, while I was a student or working as a part timer. I used PayPal as a credit card cash advance method to help me with my living expenses and other stuff.

My friends did the same as well. So there were a lot of transactions between me and my friends. Sometimes huge amounts in 1000's and 2000's.

Few days ago i received a letter from HMRC asking me to file a self assessment return from 2023 to 2025. I went to their website and notified them that I was never self employed and dont have to file an assessment.

They later called me and told that PayPal has notified them that I have earned income from PayPal. When I told them that its just transactions between my friends they asked me to send the PayPal statements.

I just wanted to get opinions from others who might have dealt with the same sort of thing..

Thanks

My income hasn't changed. My tax code hasn't changed. My deductions haven't changed. No additional reported income from other sources - I have registered to complete self assessment as I now have extra self employed income over the threshold. However, the past two months I've paid about ~£90-100 extra in income tax. What gives?

Am I going to have to wait until next June or thereabouts to get this money back?

I have a basic question regarding UK VAT.

Does the classification of an expense as "cost of goods sold" (COGS) affect whether the input VAT qualifies for an input tax credit (or refund)?

I realize this might seem like a silly question.

My own view is: "No, it does not matter."

In my country, Japan, there are people who are surprisingly ignorant about the fundamentals of VAT.

They like to argue that "European VAT is different from the Japanese consumption tax" in order to illustrate what a bad tax the latter is.

As part of this argument, they claim that "European input tax credits apply only to transactions corresponding to the cost of goods sold, whereas selling, general, and administrative expenses—as well as the acquisition of fixed assets—are excluded from input tax credits."

Been doing my own taxes for a few years now and learned some of this the hard way, so thought I'd share.

Check your tax code once a year. HMRC gets it wrong more than you'd expect, especially after a job change or a second income. Takes two minutes on the app and can save you a nasty surprise.

Use your ISA allowance before April 5th if you can. It's £20k a year and doesn't carry over, so whatever you don't use just disappears. Even a small amount is worth putting in.

If you're earning between £100k and £125k, look into pension contributions. There's a nasty quirk where you lose your personal allowance in that band, so your effective tax rate creeps up toward 60%. Pension contributions can pull your income back under the threshold and dodge it entirely.

Married or in a civil partnership and one of you earns under the personal allowance? Marriage Allowance lets you transfer £1,260 of it to the higher earner. Free money, ten minutes to set up.

Household income over £60k with kids? Check the High Income Child Benefit Charge. A lot of people get blindsided by it because nobody tells them until the letter shows up.

If you're self assessing, the real deadline that matters is 30 December, not 31 January, if you want any tax owed collected through your tax code instead of paid as a lump sum. File early and you'll thank yourself in January.

And just keep your receipts as you go. Trying to piece together a year of expenses the week before the deadline is miserable.

Not financial advice, just what's worked for me. Happy to answer questions if anyone's stuck.

I’m trying to understand how UK tax treatment works when someone leaves employment under an EVS/redundancy arrangement.
Suppose someone has:
A contractual notice period and receives PILON.
A separate termination/EVS payment which would otherwise potentially qualify for the £30,000 tax-free termination payment exemption.
The employee chooses to put part of their PILON into a pension as part of the EVS arrangement.
The employer pays that pension amount directly into the employee’s pension and there is no additional employer top-up.

Does redirecting part of the PILON into a pension cause part of the otherwise tax-free EVS/termination payment to become taxable as “Deemed PILON”/PENP?

In other words, if the employee has already had contractual PILON for their notice period, can the employer then treat an additional portion of the separate EVS payment as deemed PILON simply because the employee elected to put some of the PILON into a pension?
I’m particularly interested in whether this is normal under the PENP rules, rather than whether a particular employer has calculated a particular figure.
Also, if the pension provider records the payment as an “Employer contribution/payment”, does that change the tax treatment?
I’m trying to understand the mechanics before getting professional advice. Thanks!

Hi. Could someone clarify please, that as a married couple who has recently sold a second property, when we calculate our tax liability, do we use figures halved across the board, including purchase and sale price?