11 January 2021

Tax credit renewals – estimated and actual income figures for 2019/2020 tax year.

Anyone who completed their tax credit renewal by 31 July 2020 using an estimate of their income figures for 2019-2020 will have to tell HMRC their actual income figure for 2019-2020 by 31 January 2021. This date is sometimes called the second ‘specified date’ or 2SD. You can read more about it in our renewals section.

If claimants miss the 2SD deadline, their tax credit award will be automatically finalised using the estimated figure already provided. Normally, the claimant cannot subsequently ask for this to be changed later.

However, HMRC realise that in some exceptional circumstances people may not be able to give their actual income figure by the 31 January 2021 deadline and, for this year, they have adopted an additional process to accept late declarations of actual income for tax credits in certain situations.

Claimants (or their agents) who miss the 31 January 2021 deadline to provide their 2019-2020 actual income (after giving an estimate by 31 July 2020) for tax credits should still make every effort to confirm their figures as soon as they can. Once they have the actual figure, they need to ring HMRC’s tax credits helpline and explain why they missed the deadline. HMRC say that if the reason is COVID related, they will use their tax credit enquiry powers to accept the actual income figure and issue an updated final award.