From April 2027, banks will be required to ask both new and existing customers with savings accounts for their National Insurance numbers to make it easier for HMRC to bill taxpayers who breach their personal savings allowance.
You’ve saved too much, haven’t you, you naughty little prole. Get out there and consume some more!
Any engineers on here can think of the maximum practical size of a multi person gallows? The sheer number of people it will be needed for is probably approaching the levels of Stalin at this rate.
It wasn’t all that long ago that basic rate tax was automatically deducted from savings interest. (Could you claim it back if you weren’t a tax-payer? Can’t remember. Probably not.)
It’s mildly surprising that They haven’t just reverted to that system.
“It’s mildly surprising that They haven’t just reverted to that system.”
No. The old system wasn’t intrusive enough; and it didn’t really drive home the message that They have power and You don’t.
Tim, I agree that it is as intrusive AF but…the Personal Savings Allowance refers to your tax-free savings income, not the amount of savings.
Person in Pictland said:
“It wasn’t all that long ago that basic rate tax was automatically deducted from savings interest. (Could you claim it back if you weren’t a tax-payer? Can’t remember. Probably not.)”
By the end you could reclaim it, yes.
For the initial version you couldn’t; banks just deducted a “composite rate”, a sort of flat rate average, and if your marginal tax rate was lower than that, or if you weren’t a taxpayer at all, then tough.
But there was a big campaign against that in the ‘80s, including a court case that the government lost, and eventually (the John Major government I think) it was abolished and replaced with the basic rate income tax (which made it the right rate for most people) and also made a proper pre-payment style deduction, whereby you could reclaim it if you weren’t a taxpayer, but had to pay the extra if you were on the higher rate.
I have a vague memory that Peter Bottomley was involved in the campaign against the old system.
“You’ve saved too much, haven’t you, you naughty little prole. Get out there and consume some more!”
Its nothing of the sort. Its more an attempt to deal with the fact that the UK is so overtaxed that increasing amounts of very ‘ordinary’ people now have sources of taxable income that don’t originate from paid employment, and thus should require them to join the ranks of the Self Assessment taxation regime. This would require a massive expansion of the admin of that, which would negate the revenue raised. Schemes like this are an attempt to short circuit this – if you can get the data from the banks to incorporate savings income into PAYE automatically then you don’t need to drag millions of people into SA.
The solution(as ever) is lower taxes.
” The old system wasn’t intrusive enough; and it didn’t really drive home the message that They have power and You don’t.”
I don’t think taxing income at source regardless of whether you should be paying the tax in the first place can ever be considered as not intrusive, or not driving home the message ‘They have the power and You don’t’ enough.
This definitely needs doing. A relative of mine with a low pension but lots of savings, from the sale of a house before going into care, seemingly has an income of >32k yet is paying no income tax. They will be entitled to the combined tax free allowance of £18570 plus the dividend allowance of 1k, but everything over that is taxable. HMRC is seemingly unable to do the basic arithmetic required to add the incomes together and ask for the 4k tax. The lack of NI numbers to tie them together could explain this as names and addresses alone are a very poor way of of establishing the totality of a persons savings income.
With politicians you have to disregard what they say they want to do and look at what the legislation allows them to do. This enables them to determine exactly who you are and how much money you’ve got so when they bring in a wealth tax and CBDC they can just nick however much they want.
Just like the OSA has stopped all those Muslims raping and torturing little girls and the fact it’s stopping you see bad things on X is just one of those things…
Grist @ 9.11, and as with all ‘legislation’ it will be manipulated by those in charge to allow them to do whatever they want, no matter what problem said ‘legislation’ was introduced to deal with. See the 1984 Public Health Act………
Van Patten: no need to waste wood, we have a lot of zoos, and large carnivores are always hungry.
This a great big nothingburger, as our friends across the pond would say.
Banks already ask for your NI number when you open an account.
This is my first time pay a quick visit at here and i am really happy to read everthing at one place
@ Julia M
Do we want those nice lions, tigers, bears to get food poisoning from eating SPADs?
V_P : “Any engineers on here can think of the maximum practical size of a multi person gallows?”
The Spanish managed 12 to a side in a square setup in the aftermath of the Siege of Haarlem.
And that was just using wood.
But…. London has those lovely bridges…
Depending on how cozy you want the Blob to be in their final moments, one should easily be able to hit 100 per side , with the added advantage of it being a very public display of Discontent..
Pour encourager, etc…..
“Peter MacFarlane August 9, 2025 at 2:29 pm
This a great big nothingburger, as our friends across the pond would say. Banks already ask for your NI number when you open an account.”
No they don’t, not unless it’s an ISA where no tax will be payable.
This a great big nothingburger, as our friends across the pond would say.
Banks already ask for your NI number when you open an account.
I’m fairly sure they didn’t when I opened my First Direct account nearly 40 years ago and this legislation means they have to ask for it now.
BiND is right. When I opened my first bank account, aged 17, the branch’s Chief Cashier didn’t ask me for any ID because he already knew who I was (my parents had each had an account there since before I was born).
OTOH the bank will not need to ask me my NI number because they are told it by the DWP every four weeks when my state pension is credited.
I don’t know whether Andyf’s friend has a small private sector pension and no state pension or whether HMRC and the bank lack the elementary competence to use a DWP reference to track down his NI number
john77:
“OTOH the bank will not need to ask me my NI number because they are told it by the DWP every four weeks when my state pension is credited.”
It’s entirely possible that they’re told the number, but because it’s not you telling them the number they’re not allowed to use it (privacy concerns).
Yes, isn’t bureaucracy wonderful.