maxb

I've never been in quite this situation myself, but I have a feeling the requested payments on account are mostly just based on the total you are needing to pay this year. However, a claim to reduce payments on account is a routine process, and it's linked towards the bottom of the right hand menu in the Self Assessment site after you are done with a return - and also mentioned at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-to-reduce-payments-on-account I think you'll need to submit your return, and then submit one of those claims too.

If I understand correctly, the deciding point is who was listed as the life or lives insured on the bonds. If it was your mother (solely, or as last remaining life insured), the bonds end, and the gain is treated as part of her final personal taxation, and top slicing is available. If at least one life insured remains living, the bonds continue into the estate as bonds, and if a personal representative was to then need to trigger their surrender for value (e.g. to realise cash to pay bequests), they would be subject to tax with no top slicing permitted. Or at least, that's what I think I've gleaned from trying to understand my own family's affairs!

I think that is normal. In my experience, the balancing payment on the tax calculation at the end of filling in the return, takes into account the figures reported in the return itself only. I have needed to adjust it myself to take account of a pre-existing balance, when deciding how much to actually pay.

According to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/enterprise-investment-scheme-and-capital-gains-tax-hs297-self-assessment-helpsheet/hs297-capital-gains-tax-and-enterprise-investment-scheme-2024 if no Income Tax relief was claimed, Disposal relief is NOT available. However, Disposal relief applies to gains, not losses. Share loss relief, on the other hand, according to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/negligible-value-claims-and-income-tax-losses-on-disposals-of-shares-you-have-subscribed-for-in-qualifying-trading-companies-hs286-self-assessment-he/hs286-negligible-value-claims-and-income-tax-losses-on-disposals-of-shares-you-have-subscribed-for-in-qualifying-trading-companies-2024 MAY be available even when EIS Income Tax relief was not claimed, although when not claimed, there is a complicated set of other conditions the company must meet, so it may be difficult to determine if this applies to your shares, and you might need professional assistance.

To expand upon the admin's rather brief reply: You cannot claim for previous years within your current tax return. If you completed a tax return in previous years, but now realise you should have claimed relief, the window for making amendments to 22-23 returns via the software/website they were originally submitted by is still open. However the window for easy amendments to 21-22 is closed, and I think you'll probably be forced to send a paper letter about that... although do try HMRC Self Assessment webchat first just in case they're willing to do it that way.

Careful, deficiency relief and top slicing relief are different reliefs, don't mix up figures between the two. My impression (never having done it myself, but trying to work out the details in expectation of needing to in a future year) is that there is no box within the return itself for the amount of top slicing relief. Rather, the boxes in SA101 take the total gain, and the years over which it is to be sliced. Calculation, as I understand it, would happen when/if completing a SA110 Tax calculation summary, although I've only ever filed online and had the website do the calculations for me. There is a (fiendishly complex) worksheet in the SA110 notes which may be useful for helping clarify parts of the process even if you don't use it in full. I don't know whether if your position, you're required to submit a SA110, or can just submit without it and let HMRC do the calculations.

It's surprising to me that the workplace pension's costs are so much as to push you towards a SIPP - the ones my various employers have used have typically been good value. But, assuming you've done the maths and are happy with that decision, another thing you could consider is **how** your salary is added to your workplace pension... if it is by salary sacrifice - and with employers paying £100k+ it often is - then you are also saving a deduction of 2% employee NICs on the amount going to your pension - and this is a saving you can't claim back if you instead choose to be paid directly, and then make your own SIPP contributions. If you still think it's worth making your own contributions, then yes, it is possible to get a tax code adjustment, as I've had that treatment in years past. I don't know if it is possible to contact HMRC ad-hoc and get your tax code increased for the current year based on your plans - it might be, but I've never done it. I do, however, know that on the Self Assessment tax return, right after the place you declare contributions, there's a box to say how much of the contributions were one-off (as opposed to recurring), so that HMRC know how much credit for anticipated pension contributions to include in your tax code for the year following.

If you expand the inline help section "Tailor your return 01 - Employee, director, office holder or agency worker", it includes the wording: Do not complete the Employment pages if you: * ... * were a company director but received no payments of any kind or benefits from that directorship * ... If any of the 3 bullets above apply to you, tell us why you are not completing an Employment page in the 'Any other information' box and give the name of the particular directorship you are not submitting a page for. So, happily, for this case, there's clear advice

After however long it takes for HMRC's systems to process the return, I guess... But you don't necessarily need to wait for that - if you are working on or have just submitted a return, and want to know the actual amount you need to pay by 31st January, you can take the 2023/24 balancing payment and first payment on account for the new 2024/25 year (if any) from the return, and manually subtract any credit on your tax account including payments on account for 2023/24. The info about your account can be found under "View account" in the Self Assessment portion of your online account.

I'm no expert, and EIS is complicated, but I've been doing a lot of reading of the online resources to be ready to fill in my own tax returns... I've not come across anything suggesting a validly claimed relief being withdrawn due to future performance of the company AFTER sale of the shares.