High income child benefit question

[Gio G]

General question.

How does HMRC reconcile the CB payments made to high income earners through self assessment? Ideally those that did not stop the payments immediately. Does this information around payments made every month get fed into HMRC, to ensure the clawback?

When undertaking a self assessment it asks for the amount paid in the given tax year for CB, is there any way in which they ratify or check this to understand the actual payments made? Do they just trust us or our accountants to give the right information?

I think my accountant may of put my 2012/13 payments incorrectly, which means I paid too much tax.

Thanks G

[Eric Mc]

The overpaid CB is collected by adding the amount to the Self Assessment tax bill. It will also generate additional Self Assessment tax payments on Account for the next tax year - in some (but not all) circumstances.

HMRC initially will take the figures entered on the return and ask the taxpayer to pay the amount of tax due stated on the return. That is what "Self Assessment" is all about - the tax payer self calculating their own tax bills.

Obviously, HMRC can query and recalculate the tax amount due if they pick up that there are problems with the information stated on the return - but in my experience, they are not that diligent or careful enough in checking tax returns so most mistakes are not picked up.