cautiousjon

Hi,

I left the UK in November 2014, and after filing my US taxes, I remembered that I never filed a P85 with HMRC when I left the country. Oops.

I plugged my total income number for 2014/2015 into the calculator on ListenToTaxman and appear to have overpaid tax by several thousand pounds. I understand that HMRC will calculate this and return any overpayments by virtue of receiving the P85.

When I was living in the UK, I was granted RSUs in my employer's parent organization in the US on a three year vesting schedule. Since I left the UK, a number of those shares have vested, and I was stung for US taxes (43.58%) and UK taxes (47%), which pretty-much decimated the grant. My employer's UK division processed the RSU vests and sent me two payslips. On the payslips, it shows that I paid a few thousand pounds in tax. From what I understand, as a British citizen, I (still) qualify for the UK personal allowance of £10,500, which would easily account for the income earned by the RSU grants. Will I get this tax back as part of the P85 refund, or should I file a self-assessment tax return? I understand that the normal self-assessment deadline has passed. I also understand that HMRC will refund up to six years of overpaid taxes, so if I have left it too late to file this year, I am happy to wait until next year to get the money back. Does anyone know if I can still file this year or should I wait until next year?

It looks like I need to send my old P45 with the P85. If I cannot find this, would my last UK payslip suffice? If not, can I ask my employer's UK payroll department to send me another P45?


Thanks very much for your help and time,
Jon

cautiousjon

I spoke with two people from HMRC today who were very helpful and gave me all the answers that I was seeking.

Some highlights:

- If you pass the phone security checks, the HMRC rep can tell you over the phone how much of a tax refund you are owed from past tax years. The number that I received was actually a fair bit higher than I expected, which was a nice surprise.

- Filing a P85 is not "necessary", but it is very helpful as it tells the HMRC that you left the country and to thus not send you any new paper mail to your old UK address (which can include tax refund checks). On the P85, you can specify that you want to receive your tax refund(s) by bank transfer to a UK bank account.

- If I send a P85 to HMRC, I don't need to send my P45 as they already have it on file from my previous employer. Sending a scan/copy of my last payslip is helpful though, as it helps them corroborate my gross taxable pay and tax paid numbers.

- My employer's UK payroll department assigns me a '0T' tax code when it processes RSU vests, which is the equivalent of "this person pays full higher rate tax with no personal allowance". HMRC said British Citizens living abroad still receive the £10,500 personal allowance, so I can claim all the tax that I paid back via self-assessment. Fortunately, a self-assessment return for 2015/2016 can be filed as soon as April 6 2016.

- From April 2016, the tax treatment of dividends will be slightly different.
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...ance-factsheet

- 0% on dividend income up to £5,000
- 7.5% on dividend income within the basic rate band
- 32.5% on dividend income within the higher rate band
- 38.1% on dividend income within the additional rate band

This is useful for me because I still earn dividends from unvested stock that I earned when I lived in the UK but it's very much under £5,000 so no tax is due.

- The best time to call HMRC seems to be between 5 - 8pm UK time. When I called today at 5:30pm UK time, I got through to someone straight away.

I hope that this helps others in a similar situation.

Jon