Guidance Notes for Returns of Information Under Section 19 of the Taxes Management Act 1970

Submitting a Return in a Spreadsheet File

Notices Requiring Returns Under Sections 19 of the Taxes Management Act

If you have received one of these notices you are legally obliged to make a return to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) of the information specified in the notice. The notice explains more about the legislation and the legal requirement to provide the information.

Submitting a Section 19 Return on Disk

HMRC would prefer to receive your return on computer disk. This reduces our data capture costs. But submitting on disk is not compulsory and other submission methods are available if you cannot send in your return on disk. For example you may prefer to make your return on paper forms. If you wish to discuss the available options please phone the HMRC information unit on the number shown on your notice.

If you want to send us your return on disk you can download a template from this page. Each template is an Excel spreadsheet on which we have preset the layout. To use the template you must first have Microsoft Excel installed on your computer. By using the template you can help ensure your return fits our format and so can be successfully captured. Please follow the guidance notes in the comments boxes linked to the headings on the template.

The following notes explain how we would like you to submit your return.

Preferred Media

CD-ROM or 3.5" diskettes compatible with Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Preferred File Types

Microsoft Excel spreadsheet files containing ONE worksheet only.
Comma separated values text files (CSV).
Tab separated text files.

Avoiding Problems

We will feed your return data into an automated capture process. We ask you to follow all the suggestions here so that our capture system can read your data successfully.

  • Please confine your return to a single worksheet in an Excel workbook.
  • The spreadsheet should have column headings to help identify the data. Please use the headings we have suggested in the template.
  • The order of columns is important. Please follow the template accordingly.
  • Please enter addresses in the format requested by the template. Please do not stack address lines one above the other.
  • When entering multiple records for the same person or company, please avoid putting ditto annotations in place of repeating items.
  • When entering multiple records for the same person or company, please do not supply summary figures or subtotals.
  • Please enter the postcode(s) in the column(s) provided.
  • Please do not use “lowercase L” for 1 or “capital o” for zero.
  • When entering numbers, please use the digits 0-9 only, with the full stop as the decimal point when appropriate. Please do not type in commas, spaces or currency symbols.
  • When entering years, please always use the “yyyy/yyyy” format. For example, “2005/2006”.
  • If you do not have data to put into one of the columns, the column should still be supplied but with no data entered.
  • Please do not insert additional columns.
  • Please do not supply summary totals at the foot of columns of figures.

Currency Codes

The template asks you to enter a code for each amount to identify the appropriate currency. These currency codes are recognised internationally.

Commonly used currency codes are –

UK Sterling – GBP
Euro – EUR
United States Dollar – USD
Canadian Dollar - CAD
Australian Dollar - AUD

If the currency code column in your return is blank, we will assume that the amounts are in UK Sterling.

Contacts

If you need to contact HMRC about your return, please phone us on the number shown on your notice.