As a taxpayer, you need to keep records to support any of the entries in your Personal Tax Return.

If you’re in business or receive income from property renting, you’ll have to keep the back-up records for five years and ten months (in other words, 70 months) after the end of the tax year when the income was received.

If you don’t have business or rental income, the period of record-retention is reduced to 22 months.

From April 1996:

• the law requires you to keep records of information received from your employer and other records so that you can complete a tax return fully and accurately if you are asked to do so;

• employers must provide their employees with certain information that they need to help them fill in their tax returns (if they get one).

You should keep the following information you receive from your employer:

• P45 which contains details about your pay and tax. If you leave your job during the tax year, your employer will give you form P45. You should keep part 1A of this form.

• P60 containing details about your pay and tax. Your employer should give you this by 31 May after the end of the tax year (if you were in your job at 5 April).

• Details of your taxable expenses and benefits in kind (sometimes known as ‘P11D details’). Your employer should give you these by 6 July after the end of the tax year (if you were in your job at 5 April).

• Your employer may also give you information about expenses and benefits in kind you received which were included in a ‘dispensation’ or ‘PAYE Settlement Agreement’. These do not need to be included on your tax return.

Please click here for our core taxation service.

If you would like any further information, please do not hesitate to contact Southside Accountants Wimbledon & London.