Be ‘on it’ with your money, get the HMRC app

Do you have money-related tasks on your to-do list that you never seem to get round to? Maybe you need to find out some more information to tackle them, or you just worry they’ll take more time than you can spare right now. 

If this sounds like you, you’re in good company. Ask friends or family members and you’ll probably find most people have one or two of these tasks. Whatever happens in life, the HMRC app could help you to feel more in control.

It’s Talk Money Week, and we’re encouraging everybody to open up and start conversations about money. Once again, we’re encouraging everyone to ‘Do One Thing’ during Talk Money Week to help improve your financial wellbeing. 

So, if you haven’t yet downloaded the HMRC app, why not make that your one thing? It’s easy to install and get started, and totally free.

Whatever your age, job situation or life stage, most of us have a task on their to-do list that involves HMRC. Whether it’s reminding yourself what your National Insurance number is for a new job, updating your address when you move house, or claiming Child Benefit when you welcome a new baby. 

The HMRC app can make it easier for you to get these jobs completed anytime, or anywhere so you can tick them off your list and avoid worrying about them. Once you’ve downloaded it and signed in, you’ll have easy access to all sorts of useful information about money, your taxes and your benefits.

HMRC currently receives over 38 million calls to its phone lines each year – many of which are people asking for information that they could have found from the HMRC app or HMRC’s online services. So, if you need to check something, it makes sense to try the app first. 

Once you’ve downloaded the HMRC app and signed in, you’ll have lots of useful bits of info at your fingertips. 

The HMRC app makes it easy to find information such as your latest tax code, your National Insurance number or your State Pension forecast. 

You can check your income from work in the previous five years and how much Income Tax you should pay, as well as claiming a tax refund if you’re owed one. You can also claim and manage your Child Benefit or update your personal details such as name or address.

If you need to take care of any of these tasks, the HMRC app could make them faster and simpler to complete: 

• claim and manage Child Benefit, or download proof of entitlement
• view your State Pension forecast and check for National Insurance contribution gaps
• check your tax code, find out if you’re due any tax back from HMRC and claim a refund if you’re owed one
• update HMRC on a change of address or other personal details 
• remind yourself of your National Insurance number, and save it to your phone wallet
• view or download your income and employment history from the past five years, and use tools like the tax calculator to estimate take-home pay
• make payments for Self Assessment, Simple Assessment, and even set payment reminders
• access your Help to Save account to check your savings and bonus
• use HMRC’s digital assistant for guidance and support. 

Once you’re set up, you’ll be able to sign in quickly and securely using your face, fingerprint or iris, providing your device supports this.

You can also use it to tell HMRC you want to go paperless, so that you receive communication from them electronically.