Reporting 'interest received' on self-assessment

ChrisWalker

Hi. I have purchased your self-assessment add-on, and was hoping someone might be able to help with a query…

My sole trader earnings are paid into my Wise business account. This is my sole source of income that you are using to prepare my self-assessment via the ‘self-assessment’ add-on I have purchased.

However, I receive interest on this Wise GBP account. According to Wise, the interest works like this:

Wise Interest allows users to earn returns on GBP, USD, or EUR balances by investing them in the BlackRock ICS Government Liquidity Fund, which holds low-risk, government-guaranteed assets. Returns are added daily, and funds remain accessible for spending or sending without being locked away. It is not a bank account, but a “Stocks and Shares” asset type.

Therefore interest is added to my balance on a daily basis.

So far, I have been recording the monthly amount of GBP interest paid into my Wise account, and recording this as a monthly ‘Interest received’ figure in Crunch, to ensure that Crunch reconciles/balances correctly against my Wise balance.

On your self-assessment questionnaire, you ask for a total of interest received during the 25-26 tax year. I was anticipating simply adding up the 12 months of ‘interest received’ figures for the 25-26 tax year. Is this the correct way of handling this? Or should I be requesting a statement from Wise for the interest received in the 25-26 year (which is only available after the end of June 2026) and using figures from that? Will this ultimately be the same anyway? Or different because it is a ‘Stocks and Shares asset type’?

Many thanks for your help.

ChrisWalker

Just to add some context… in my Wise account, under the ‘Tax Statement’ section, it says this:

“If you use Interest, it’s worth remembering you’re investing in a fund. The fund invests in assets, and you make gains from the interest paid on these assets. This means it’s different from earning interest with a regular bank account — and can be taxed differently to bank interest.”

I’ve always recorded this as ‘Interest received’ in Crunch. Is that wrong? If so, how should I be recording it?
If I need to change the way I record it, how do I then reconcile it in Crunch?
How do I then report it on the questionnaire Crunch sends me to prepare my end-of-year self-assessment?
How will this work going forward for MTD for Income Tax? If I am supposed to treat this as something like ‘Capital Gains’ instead of ‘Interest received’, and Wise only makes the tax statement available three months after the end of the tax year, how will data be correctly transmitted to HMRC quarterly throughout the year via MTD?

Thanks for your help.

Katie

Hi ChrisWalker

I’ve just spoken to one of our Accountants about this for you. They’ve asked if you received any official documents at the end of the tax year summarising the income/interest earned? This will be the best way for us to know exactly how it should be categorised on your return.

Based on what you’ve shared here, we don’t think Capital Gains would apply. If you don’t receive any documentation from Wise to the contrary, we’ll likely classify it as ‘interest’ or ‘other income’.

For now, please continue to record this as Interest Received in Crunch. While filling in your questionnaire, you should have an option to attach supporting documentation, so please add any relevant statement of earnings there.

Our records that we’re currently awaiting your questionnaire, so I’ve added a couple of notes for the producing accountant to check as we begin work on your Self Assessment. We’ll also be able to advise whether any changes are needed to accommodate MTD for Income Tax moving forward.

Thanks,
Katie

ChrisWalker

Thanks so much as always @Katie . Yes, Wise does produce an end-of-year ‘Tax Statement’ which is specifically aimed at income from their ‘interest’ product. However, the 25-26 Tax Statement isn’t available until July 2026, according to Wise. I have requested a copy of the 24-25 Tax Statement, so I can at least see how they break down this information, but it will take them up to 10 days to send this to me. I can provide that information here (minus personal details!) once I receive it.

However, I suspect the interest won’t be listed as ‘interest’ on this statement, based on it being a ‘stocks and shares asset type’, and also Wise stating that it is different from earning interest with a regular bank account, and can be taxed differently to bank interest. I’m hoping I’m wrong, and it’ll just be classified as ‘income/interest’, rather than capital gains or ERI, but I’ll know more once I receive my 24-25 Wise Tax Statement as an example.

By labelling it as ‘Interest received’ in Crunch, am I not effectively applying my Personal Savings Allowance? Which isn’t necessarily correct, if it’s not labelled as interest on my Wise Tax Statement. From the research I’ve done, it seems more likely that it should go against my ‘Annual Exempt Amount’ (which would give me an additional tax-free amount, in addition to my Personal Savings Allowance), otherwise I’m overpaying tax for the amount above and beyond my Personal Savings Allowance. I could be on the wrong tracks here though!

As far as MTD goes, my understanding is that the quarterly updates are strictly for your primary trading income, so they should not include items such as:

Standard savings interest
Dividends
Capital gains
Foreign income

… and instead I would include the information from my Wise Tax Statement at the end of the year (once Wise has produced it), as part of my Final Declaration. So nothing interest-related would be submitted quarterly anyway. Again, I could be wrong here!

If you could show the accountant the information above, and see if I’m on the right tracks, and whether this changes any of the advice you gave in your previous reply, I would be incredibly grateful. Thanks so much for your help!

Katie

Hi ChrisWalker

I think this is a little more in-depth than I can advise on properly here, and needs a bit of a chat with an accountant. I’ll add this to the notes I’ve already made.

I agree, seeing the 2024/25 statement is a good idea, so we can at least get a good understanding of how it’s broken down. You can email this to us at selfassessment@crunch.co.uk or feedback@crunch.co.uk

As soon as we can advise properly on how Wise are breaking down the details, we’ll also be able to confirm the correct way to account for it in Crunch. Don’t worry too much about where it’s recorded for now - for the 2025/26 return, we’ll use the questionnaire as a starting point, then we’ll help make any necessary adjustments.

Apologies, I can’t give you a more detailed answer at this point!

Thanks,
Katie

ChrisWalker

Thanks @Katie , I appreciate this is quite involved and probably too in-depth for a forum, but I was unable to find the self-assessment email address to send my query to, otherwise I would have done that. Thanks for confirming it’s ‘selfassessment@crunch.co.uk’. I’ll use this going forward to get this sorted out properly. Thanks again for all your help!

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