Weekly Tax Briefing

Tax 25 August 2000

The Inland Revenue has just published, in this month's Tax Bulletin, a welcome clarification of the rules on making carry back claims under Income Tax Self Assessment.

If the taxpayer makes (for example) a trading loss or personal pension payment in one year, and carries it back to the previous year, relief is given without (as a procedural matter) reopening the self assessment for the previous year. Nevertheless, consequential claims for the previous year can still be made.

The Tax Bulletin gives some examples of cases where carry backs can give rise to possible consequential claims even though the self assessment is not reopened.