Pliers wrote:

I hope someone can advise me about my mother's income tax self assessment
for 08-09 where one of her financial statements has an entry for
on UK Government stock. One figure is a gross interest, fair enough. Then
another entry shows "Accrued Interest Paid" which is a negative number.

Is there an explanation for this negative interest and how is it entered
on the SA return?

In general terms "accrued interest" means interest which has been, so to
speak, "earned", but which has not yet been paid. For instance you accrue
interest on a bank deposit account continuously, or daily, but it isn't
normally credited to the account daily, but just quietly clocks up somewhere
in the background, and is credited only on certain days, typically monthly,
quarterly, or yearly.

So if "accrued interest" is interest *not paid*, the term "accrued interest
paid" is strictly speaking an oxymoron (a self-contradiction). I'm not
familiar with government stock management practice, but would imagine your
mother's holding is wrapped in some kind of notional account into which
interest accrues continuously, or perhaps even incrementally (that'll be
the figure for "gross interest"). In that case the "accrued interest paid",
especially if it's a negative number, almost certainly represents a transfer
into some other account, probably her usual current account, and so you
should be able to track it down there. For income tax purposes, you should
disregard both this negative figure and the corresponding positive figure in
the current account, and just enter the original "gross interest" as earned.