UK tax on SSA back payment

Hello,

I will need to do self assessment for the first time for 23-24 as I had a small US employer pension payment April 1st of this year, otherwise I would have been well under the personal allowance despite working a couple of months under PAYE.

Later this year I received my first Social Security payment which included payment from January of this year as it took a long time to be approved.

If I had received monthly payments from Jan-Mar I would have still been under the personal allowance for last year.

This year I will be over the personal allowance. I assume I will now have to pay HMRC 20% on the back payment I should have received for Jan-Mar 2024 in the tax year when I was under the personal allowance.

Does anyone know if there is any relief available in this situation?

Thanks

I’m not a tax pro by any means but I think HMRC works on a cash received basis so I would be surprised if they allowed you to extract the value of 3 months of your payment and apply that to a previous tax year.

I would try calling HMRC and asking them directly.

Thanks, Durhamlad.

I suspected as much but it is enough money to be worth asking the question.

I’m not a tax pro by any means but I think HMRC works on a cash received basis so I would be surprised if they allowed you to extract the value of 3 months of your payment and apply that to a previous tax year.

I would try calling HMRC and asking them directly.

I agree with that.  I made the mistake of asking for a lump sum back payment and it nearly put me into a higher tax bracket.  Too late for me but I'd advise people to to take the extra monthly instead of having backpayment.  Or at least make sure it's not going to move you into a higher tax bracket.