Early adopter bonus - is it taxable? (Z)

So the only thing i might add to this is that in my case i have EAB and in Feb and Mar those values do not appear due to the EAB function having being turned off and i suspect not turned back on or it was not ready in time for the update. I was advised that my EAB for those two months would appear in the April period I assume that affects everyone. Myself and Mrs Aju have other non specified "bonus" items in our statements where by I was advised that some loan entries were inadvertently missed in the statements for specific loans and were then added as bonus items to make the top line match the statements totals. (Sounds like a one off bodge to me and not really sure why but that's what i was told).

The overiding thing here for me is that I suspect Zopa support and possibly tribe members do not understand the system enough to be able to make the new system work correctly or worse do not understand UK tax laws. There must be someone who knows but the front end is not communicating this or worse hiding behind the misguided view that they do not have a responsibility to supply correct information.

I am storing a lot of this up to try and get the old detailed statements dta back but since we are almost down to 3 figure values its not really worth my time now - mind you going to the FCA and HMRC will probably be worth it soon. (As i said before my tax details are correct and i can just about prove it with my spreads of their systems but I'm betting if i was in error HMRC would not accept my personal data anyway. Zopa does have the data and I have been advised that the Zopa P2P CEO Natasha Weir has stated that if we want data we can have it. Clearly Zopa has all this data!.

I would point out that the data i am getting takes quite a bit of effort and expertise to squeeze into my Office 2007 without a lot understanding of their formatted CSV's they throw at me I get there but its time consuming.

Exactly what I was complaining about, for me they stopped declaring EAB taxable (judging by the amount) towards the end of the 2020/21 tax year. As said above Zopa confirmed the full amount of bonuses for the tax year was EAB (quoted the total amount back to me) most is declared as taxable and a small amount not taxable (all my EAB this tax year has been declared not taxable). This is apparently because they no longer tell us what is taxable or not, except that is exactly what they have done (but apparently wrongly)! I can't get any sense out of them even kicking it up the tribe, not to worry the tribe are working tirelessly to update the tax statements to avoid confusion in future. I'm not confused their statements are just wrong. I hope you get more sensible answers, but I have my doubts.

Did you get an answer?

Pretty much the same as I got. I don't think they understand the difference between what they are telling me in emails which is, 'we are not telling you if it's taxable or not', and what they are saying in the tax statement, specific amounts are and are not taxable, these statements are not compatible. They're sorry for confusion, it will all be made clear eventually and from the one I'm dealing with they don't really see the problem with putting out inaccurate tax statements. Lenders potentially reporting incorrect taxable income to HMRC (I'm sure many have already completed their returns) doesn't raise an eyebrow, all very relaxed and casual at Zopa towers or wherever the tribe reside these days. Certainly dents my confidence in Zopa!

I haven't attempted to check all the figures I assume perhaps foolishly that they are more or less correct.

On my 2020/21 tax statement I definitely have bonuses (£X), of which taxable (smaller £Y (not just pennies but tens of pounds less)). I initially just queried what the not taxable bonus was, since I thought I only had EAB and expected a simple sensible explanation. The answer comes back that the total bonus £X is all EAB, why 'of which taxable' is only £Y they won't say. They just say I should consider the whole amount of the bonuses (all EAB apparently) and make my own decision about whether it is taxable or not, as they don't give tax advice! It's just plain stupid.

Like you all my EAB this tax year is classed as not taxable, which must be wrong unless they have somehow changed the tax status of EAB (I wish). I could just about accept that this is temporarily wrong and they are going to change the wording before the end of the tax year to something like Bonus EAB you must decide if it's taxable. But last years tax statement should be correct by now and mine is clearly not one way or another EAB cannot be both taxable and not taxable can it?