Change is coming for tax payers residing in Wales
Tax payers resident in Wales will start paying Welsh Income Tax from April 2019. They will have a proportion of their income tax paid directly to the Welsh Government, rather than just via the block grant. The Welsh Government will also be able to set and vary rates of tax paid.
The Welsh income tax will be applied based upon residency, and so employees should make sure HMRC is holding their correct address. If an employee needs to change their address they could be directed to their online personal tax account. HMRC will remain responsible for collecting the taxes.
A New Tax Code Prefix
An employee subject to Welsh Income Tax will have a ‘C’ prefix to their tax code, so for instance their tax code could be C1185L. This is similar to the Scottish Rate of Income Tax where ‘S’ is used as the prefix.
It is too early to say whether we expect very much to change, and in the first year of Scottish Income Tax the changes were minimal. Initially it appears that there will only be changes with the rates, if any changes at all, and no introduction of new thresholds. However, as can now be seen, Scotland have made their income tax scheme more complex, and there are marked differences from the main UK thresholds.
Acronyms and Abbreviations
On a positive note, although the acronym / abbreviation SRIT was frequently used for the Scottish Rate of Income tax, I have not spotted HMRC attempting WIT in this context.
