Our top tax tips for students, answering your FAQs.

This is a freeview 'At a glance' guide for students.

Subscribers see also Students & Tax

Employment income and tax overpayments

I have a couple of jobs and I might have overpaid tax. How much can I earn tax-free?

When should I claim a tax refund?

How do I claim a tax refund if I have overpaid tax?

The simplest thing is to use HMRC's online tool

Last tax year(s)

When do I have to repay my student loans?

I am the beneficiary of a trust: do I need to consider tax?

If you are lucky enough to be the beneficiary of a trust you may be able to claim an annual refund of Income Tax.

Contact your trustees who will provide you with an R185 certificate of tax deduction.

You can then use Form R40 to reclaim the trust tax deducted from HMRC. You will be able to reclaim the difference between your own tax rate (assuming you pay tax at all) and the trust tax rate of 45%. If you do not pay tax you should be able to reclaim all the tax paid by the trust on the income you receive.

I am starting my own business: what do I do now?

If you start your own business whether as a student or after you graduate, you will need to register with HMRC and notify chargeability to tax.

You will be fined if you fail to tell HMRC that you are chargeable to tax.

You also need to set up to pay National Insurance Contributions and these are essential in order to ensure that you qualify for state benefits and pension.

See Starting in Business: start here

I have started a business but I am going to be making losses, do I need to register with HMRC?

It is still worth notifying HMRC that you have started a business. You will need to claim that loss on a tax return and then you can offset it against future income. If you have past income, you can carry back losses made when you start a business to the previous four years. See Losses, trade losses and sideways loss relief

I am undertaking a bit of Research and Development (R&D) and I have heard it has some tax breaks. What do you suggest?

Yes, there are some great tax breaks for R&D however you need to be working with or through a company in order to benefit from any R&D reliefs. 

If you are doing R&D with your university it may well have an R&D spin-off company and this base will be covered.

However, if you are doing your own thing, perhaps developing Apps, coding, or whatever then it is worth discussing further where this may lead in terms of tax relief. The key thing with R&D is to define your project and work through the tax outcomes at the start.

Contact VtaxP support if you require any assistance.


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