General rules
You cannot update backwards to a tax year before the year ended 5th April 1997. This is because Personal Tax does not deal with earlier years than 1996/97. Therefore only one option, Update forwards to year ended 5th April 1998, is available when Year ended 5th April 1997 is selected in the list of existing years.
You may not be able to update a particular section because either its start date prevents it from being updated backwards or its end date prevents it from being updated forwards. An Information window appears when this situation arises:
'This section has date limits in place that prevent it being updated to another period. If you require this item to be section updated, please check any date limits in place on this item.'
Date limits refers to the dates in data entry forms which represent the start and end of that particular item. In most data entry forms these are simply Start date and End date, but in some forms they have different names. In Shares acquired, for example, the two dates are called Date acquired and Date disposed.
Example
Mr John Abrahams has two tax years set up, 1997 and 1998, with an Employment in 1998. The employment has a Employment started date of 01/01/98.
You attempt to section update the employment. The above message appears as you cannot update forwards to 1999 because a year update has to be performed before the section update can occur. You cannot update backwards to 1997 because the employment did not start until 01/01/1998.
Certain Partnerships losses are not updated backwards. These are Allowable loss to carry back and Allowable loss to carry back from furnished holiday lettings.
No figures in Chargeable Event Gains are updated forwards or backwards and no information at all will appear in the tax return.
Joint Income is not yet handled by section updating. The interest details for the client are updated but not for the spouse.