SA and week 53

While completing the 2008 self assessment tax returns we began to notice that a number of clients where we would have expected no liability to arise i.e. basic rate taxpayers with all income having been taxed were coming out as owing between £20 and £40.

We found that they were all weekly paid employees where week 53 had been needed for 2007-08.

The manual payroll tables and the software had both given them an additional week’s personal allowance or ‘free pay’ of 1/52 x £5 225 to set against the week 53 income.

Both methods also checked the week 53 indicator on the P14/P60.

When the totals were transferred onto the employment pages of the SA return we found that there is no provision to tell the system that week 53 is present so only the personal allowance of £5 225 is allowed to be deducted. This gave...