Calculating Gross Interest

Divide by 0.8.

Bitstring , from the wonderful person Andy Pandy said

Or multiply by one and a quarter, which is typically easier to do.

Is it? Adjusting the decimal point is trivial. Is dividing by 8 really more difficult than multiplying by 125?

Only for people who understand what a decimal point is in the first place. That let's out a lot of the population.

Yep, which is why schools always teach multiplication first. But I actually said 1 and a quarter. So I'm suggesting they divide X by four (or halve it twice) and add it to what they started with. Yep, you could halve it three times, but then you have that pesky rescaling (decimal shift) to cope with.

For a definitive figure over the whole interest period ask your savings provider to issue you with a certificate of income tax deduction, it should be free, and this will state precisely how much interest was earnt gross, how much tax was paid and the final net interest payment.

gross interest paid / average acct balance x 100 approximates to your gross interest rate, but don't forget that many providers calculate interest on a daily basis and therefore it is calculated daily on the acct balance on that date; hence if your acct balance changes regularly the approximation becomes less accurate.

In message , Gav writes

You dont need to. Wait long enough and every deposit taker that you use will send you, in addition to their normal account statements, an annual summary of the fiscal year showing gross interest paid, tax deducted and net interest for every account you have. I am not sure what the time limit is for them to do this, but generally they seem to have been (in my case) by end of May.