gross rate or net ?

the advice is correct, you're not paying tax so you could be getting your interest paid tax free and be entitled to claim back a refund on overpaid tax

.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/tax-free-interest.htm

all you need to think about is the consequences if they decide they want to check into your earnings and investiate your betting, some of the people that have been investigated will tell you it's not much fun even though it worked through in the end, this might be a flag for them to take a look

personally i took the decision not to claim ( yet )

when i finally retire from my betfair life i will look at what i can claim back at that point, in the meantime i don't want the hassle

You need a form R40 from HMRC, to 'claim for repayment of tax deducted from savings and investments'. You get a yearly allowance of about 7.5k, before you have to pay any tax. If income from all employment/savings accounts is less than this figure, you can reclaim any tax paid on those accounts.

thanks elise, is it also correct that you can only claim back over the last 7 years though?

may i ask andriy whether you have claimed back tax from savings?

i think there is a time limit but i didn't investigate sorry, but 7 years would sound feasible

someone else will know for sure

just had a look at that link i posted, there is a table which reads as 4 years from the year end in which to claim

I hate some net accounts last year, made a claim without any hassle

had* even.  Usually you can select gross and you just have to put in your national insurance number, sometimes you have to fill out and form and sometimes they only pay out a net rate so you're forced to claim

cheers don, did you just fill in the form then because according to elise in his post, it will make them possibly

investigate all yr earnings and check to see if its all above board etc.

not saying they "will" investigate saying that for me i didn't need the investifgation and do not want to draw attention by claiming

my premier account manager told me to claim, i decided not to

y did a financial adviser have to highlight that for you...

he didn't i knew, he just keeps telling me and i keep saying no

I filled in the form because I had an account that only paid net and it was about £800's worth that I reclaimed. But elise is right, might be wise to wait until the last moment to claim to avoid them sniffing around.  I'm surprised they haven't come for me yet, ill probably just keep accurate records and claim down the line from now on, you get **** all interest on it thanks to the stupid Funding for Lending scheme anyway

Reclaiming the tax is tricky, but registering your savings accounts to be tax-free is much easier:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/calcs/r85/index.htm

If your only income is through gambling, the first £155/week interest from savings is tax free (and you'd need quite a lot of savings to make that much a week, given the rubbish interest rates)

Just fill out the form R85 and give it to your bank(s).

cheers mr magoo. 

do you need to fill the r85 form everytime you go to a different bank to invest each year?

surely fillig out form will still lead to i revenue possibly digging around into yr finances though?

I fill in a tax return every year and claim back all tax paid on savings interest. I don't really get why it's a problem?

Yes, you need to fill in the form for each new bank, but at least the form is pretty simple. And you only have to give the form to your bank, so you don't have to deal with HMRC and all its bureaucracy and slowness.

Trevh, if you're filling in a tax return then you're right, no need to do both. But if you don't current do a yearly tax return, form r85 is much simpler!