HMRC Stakeholder Digest - February 2025

28 Feb 2025

Please see the following message from HMRC, which we are sharing for information:

The HMRC Stakeholder Digest provides a monthly round-up of our latest news and updates. We’d be grateful if you would share relevant information with your clients or members.

New ‘Help for Hustles’ campaign

HMRC has launched a new ‘Help for Hustles’ campaign this month to help those earning extra income through side hustles to get their tax right.  

What is a ‘side hustle’?

A ‘side hustle’ describes ways of making extra income outside of someone’s day job. It can mean anything from dog walking to digital content creation and making things to sell online.  

We want to help customers earning additional income through side hustles to understand the steps they may need to take to declare their earnings, and to avoid any tax surprises. 

We also want to reassure people selling unwanted personal belongings from their wardrobe or garage that they usually don’t have to worry about tax.

Anyone generating more than £1,000 in a tax year from their side hustle should check their tax obligations using HMRC’s new easy to use online guide, ‘Tax Help for Hustles’ on GOV.UK.

Unlocking Child Trust Funds 

Young people aged 18 to 22 should check to see if they have unclaimed savings in a matured Child Trust Fund (CTF).

A Child Trust Fund is a long-term, tax-free savings account set up for children born between 1 September 2002 and 2 January 2011.

The government deposited a small amount of money into each CTF, which matures when the account-holder turns 18.

Once the account matures, the account-holder can claim the money from their CTF account, worth an average of £2,200.

Hundreds of thousands of matured accounts remain unclaimed. 

Please help us by encouraging young people to check if they have a CTF and claim their funds.

They can get more information, including how to find their CTF provider for free on GOV.UK.

Filling National Insurance gaps to increase the State Pension

People have until 5 April 2025 to fill gaps in their National Insurance (NI) record dating back to 6 April 2006. After this date, payments can only be made for the previous six tax years.

The quickest and easiest way for people to check a State Pension forecast and find out if they can benefit from paying to fill NI gaps is by checking their NI record on GOV.UK or in the HMRC app. 

The HMRC app is free and can help you manage your tax affairs quickly and easily. Beware of third party apps - HMRC do not charge for downloading or using our app. Guidance on how to download the HMRC app is on GOV.UK.

For anyone who is unable to get through on Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) phoneline ahead of the deadline, they’ve created an online call back request form.

This will enable people to request a call back about paying voluntary National Insurance contributions to fill gaps in State Pension entitlement between 2006 and 2018. The form will be available on the Contact the Future Pension Centre page on GOV.UK.

DWP will call back to discuss payment of voluntary National Insurance contributions. This will normally be within 8 weeks of submitting a request, there is no need to make further contact with DWP or HMRC

People who submit a request to DWP by 5 April 2025 deadline will still be able to pay voluntary National Insurance contributions back to 6 April 2006, after the deadline has passed.

When a person submits a request, a message will appear on their screen to confirm that their request has been sent to the DWP Pension Centre. We’d recommend saving a screenshot of the confirmation message.

There will be no further need for people to contact DWP or HMRC.

Tax advice — don't get caught out by tax avoidance

Our ‘don’t get caught out’ campaign on GOV.UK helps contractors learn how to spot the signs of tax avoidance. This includes how to check their pay to make sure they’re paying the right amount of tax.

Contractors can find out more about tax avoidance from our:

Contractors who have used a tax avoidance scheme can also find the support they need to leave the scheme and report it to the HMRC 'don’t get caught out' campaign page on GOV.UK.

Our aim is to get them back on the right track, without judgement, offering them the help they need to get out of the scheme and settle their tax affairs

Details of tax avoidance schemes and their promoters to steer clear of are also published on GOV.UK. This is not a complete list.

Remember, contrary to what some promoters tell prospective clients, HMRC never approves tax avoidance schemes for use. 

Please consider sharing this message and resources with your networks through your social media channels, newsletters and websites. 

Open consultations:

UK businesses urged to have their say on electronic invoicing

Last week, we launched a joint 12-week consultation with the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) on the government’s electronic invoicing (e-invoicing) proposals.  

The ‘Promoting electronic invoicing across UK businesses and the public sector’ consultation on GOV.UK will gather views on standardising e-invoicing and how to increase its adoption.

The consultation closes on 7 May 2025, and you can read more about it in our press release on GOV.UK

We want to hear the opinions of self-employed people, businesses of all sizes, representative and industry bodies, charities and public sector organisations. People can take part whether they currently use e-invoicing or not.

We will also engage with a broad range of businesses and interested stakeholders to secure their views at various events, including face-to-face discussions.

If you would like to be part of these discussions, please contact [email protected].

HMRC Statistics User Consultation 2025

We are proposing to make changes to some of our statistical publications and we’ve launched a public consultation to gather the thoughts and opinions of our users.

The Consultation on changes to HMRC statistics publications 2025 is on GOV.UK and will remain open until 10 April 2025.

If you use any of these publications in your work and would like to comment on the proposals or the programme more generally, please contact [email protected].

We will review all feedback we receive and publish a consultation response, setting out confirmed plans, in summer 2025.