No Chargeable Event Gain Certificate

I was married and lived in Germany where I held life insurance policies. Upon divorce, I returned to the UK where I am now resident and pay tax. As part of my divorce settlement, I had to transfer a portion of the policies to my ex-husband. This happened during the same year that the divorce was finalised. In the 2023-24 tax year I surrendered the policies and had the funds transferred directly into my UK bank account. These are subject to tax as Chargeable Event Gains and I am in the process of completing my tax return for 2023-24. When I requested a Chargeable Event Gain Certificate the German insurance company that I had these policies with, they had not heard of and were unable to provide me with a Chargeable Event Gain Certificate. However, I did manage to get them to supply a document for each policy listing each of the premiums paid in and any pay outs in chorological order enabling me to calculate the chargeable gain for each policy. I have presented these calculations as a spreadsheet along with the documents from the insurance company and my workings out for any tax due after the deduction of the annual £6K allowance. I attempted to compete an online tax form and successfully got all the way to the end and was then unable to complete the process as the documents exceed the size allowed. I am now waiting for a paper form and have prepared paper versions of the supporting documentation. I intend to use these funds to bring my mortgage down and need confirmation of the amount that I owe the HMRC in order to proceed as my current fixed rate is due to end in December, so I am very keen to stay on top of the entire process. My experience in the past has been that the HMRC are over worked and slow and so I will need to follow up once the paper return has gone in. My main concern is that HMRC will not accept the documents supplied by the German company, who have been hugely unhelpful, and that I will end up being taxed on the entire surrender amount, a substantial amount of which is made up of the premiums. Would the documentation from the insurance company detailing each premium paid in be acceptable to the HMRC and serve the same purpose as a Chargeable Event Gain Certificate in that they prove the gain and prove the amount taxable, i.e. the surrender amount minus the premiums paid in? If not, is there any alternative documentation to a Chargeable Event Gain Certificate that would be acceptable? Once the completed documentation has been received by HMRC how quickly can I expect confirmation of tax owed? Or that my calculations for tax owed are accurate? Many thanks.

Hi ms hugo,
As there are multiple chargeable events, you are unable to use an online tax return.
A paper return is required.
You can download the supplementary pages here:
Self Assessment tax return forms
For each gain, we require the amount of gain and the number of years the policy was held or since the last gain.
We are required to manually calculate any top slicing relief that may arise, which is why a paper return is necessary.
You can work this out for yourself, should you want to, by following the guidance here:
IPTM3840 - Top slicing relief: how relief is given
Thank you. 

 

Thank you this does help. I had already requested paper return forms for this reason and should have them completed alongside the supporting documentation this weekend. My main concern is the lack of Chargeable Event Gain Certificate. I have proof of when the policies started and when they were surrendered, so the length of each policy; And I have proof of premiums paid in as well as the surrender value, and the transfer value from Euros to £ sirling, the chargeable gain in stirling, So I do have all of the information that you would need or that would be on a Chargeable Event Gain Certificate, however it is in several different documents rather than in one place, i.e. on a certificate. This is quite possibly why the German insurance company didn't understand why I needed it a second time on a certificate and they didn't appear to understand what I was asking for. In short they were quite unhelpful. Obviously I will include all of this information and documentation in my return and present it as clearly as possible. However it would put my mind at rest if I knew that this would be acceptable to HMRC in the absence of a Chargeable Event Gain Certificate. Could you please clarify this. I don't think that I am eligible for Top slicing relief, but if I'm honest I am completely stumped at trying to understand this. Many thanks

Hi,

Yes this is acceptable. Top slicing relief will be worked out when the return is processed if it is applicable.

Thank you.