The Tax Adjustments page of the Self Assessment tax return

This article provides a summary of the Tax Adjustments page of the Self Assessment tax return and the relevant information required to complete it.

You can see how FreeAgent has worked out your tax and class 4 National Insurance on the Your Tax Breakdown page of your Self Assessment return.

If you need to adjust this figure, for example if you've paid too much or not enough tax through PAYE, you can do that on the Tax Adjustments page. For more information, please ask your accountant or HMRC.

We are not authorised by HMRC to provide accounting or tax advice. Therefore, FreeAgent’s Support team cannot advise you on how to fill in your tax return correctly or check your figures to see if they are correct, unless they have been calculated by the software. If you’re unsure whether a figure on your tax return is right, please speak to your accountant or to HMRC.

Underpayments or overpayments through PAYE

If you have a PAYE code then you may receive a 'Notice of Coding' from HMRC if they change your tax code. On this notice, you might find that HMRC has given a sum of tax that you underpaid for the previous tax year, or before.

For example, your 2021–22 tax code may have been adjusted to collect tax you owe for previous years. If HMRC has made an adjustment which shows on your 2021-22 PAYE Coding Notice as 'amount of underpaid tax for earlier years', you'll need to enter this amount into box 7. Alternatively, if HMRC has made an adjustment that shows as ‘outstanding debt’ on your PAYE 2021-22 Coding Notice, you'll need to enter this amount into box 9.

If your circumstances changed during the year up to 5th April 2022 and your 2021–22 tax code was reduced, you may have paid too little tax for the time before your code was reduced. To see if this applies to you, look for the message: "Our estimate of the underpayment for the earlier part of the year is £xxxxxx. We will normally collect any underpayment through your Self Assessment return. This will be calculated when your tax return for the year is processed." on your 2021–22 PAYE Coding Notice from HMRC.

If you are happy to pay this underpayment with the rest of your Self Assessment tax, leave this box blank, but if you asked HMRC to collect this tax through your tax code for 2021–22, enter the amount into box 8.

Payments on account

You may find you have payments on account to make. FreeAgent works these out for you and fills in box 11 with the amount of your first payment on account. Please note that this is an amount you have to pay as well as the tax due for this year, so this figure is in addition to the total tax due that you see at the top of the return pages.

HMRC allows you to reduce your payments on account if you know your profit for 2022/23 will be less than your profit for 2021/22 (for example if you've lost a big customer). You can claim to reduce your payments on account on your tax return by choosing 'Yes' and then entering the reduced amount in box 11. Explain why you are making the claim in box 17 of the 'Any other information' section.

Please note that if you reduce your payments on account too far, HMRC will charge you interest for late payment of tax. If you’re unsure, please ask your accountant.

Blind Person's or Married Couple's surplus allowance

If your spouse or civil partner didn't have enough income in the tax year to use up all (or any) of their Blind Person's or Married Couple's Allowance, you can ask for the surplus to be transferred to you. Enter this in box 12 or 13 as appropriate.

Adjustments to tax due

If you need to, you can enter an adjustment in the 'Adjustments to tax due' section.

Any other information

Finally, enter any additional information that you think HMRC might need in the 'Any other information' section.