student loan household income

My parents have run a small business for 25 years and their profit fluctuates considerably - the business had losses in 2014/15, 2016/17, and then profits in the following years.
For income tax purposes, their losses in previous years are offset against their subsequent profits. The net figure is then their taxable income for the relevant year.
Student Finance England's online instructions state that the relevant figure you require is "your household's taxable income".
However, your application form requires my parents to state the Box 16 profit on Tax Return form SA104F. However this is not their taxable income because it omits to deduct the losses shown in the next Box - no. 17 which is the losses from the previous years.
Could SFE confirm that the relevant figure for household income for Student Loan purposes is the TAXABLE income for the year and that therefore the relevant box on Tax Return Form 104F should be Box 18 which is the "Taxable Profit" as described in the Tax Return and not Box 16 which totally disregards the actual state of the business, which is trying to recoup losses in earlier years?

My parents have run a small business for 25 years and their profit fluctuates considerably - the business had losses in 2014/15, 2016/17, and then profits in the following years.
For income tax purposes, their losses in previous years are offset against their subsequent profits. The net figure is then their taxable income for the relevant year.
Student Finance England's online instructions state that the relevant figure you require is "your household's taxable income".
However, your application form requires my parents to state the Box 16 profit on Tax Return form SA104F. However this is not their taxable income because it omits to deduct the losses shown in the next Box - no. 17 which is the losses from the previous years.
Could SFE confirm that the relevant figure for household income for Student Loan purposes is the TAXABLE income for the year and that therefore the relevant box on Tax Return Form 104F should be Box 18 which is the "Taxable Profit" as described in the Tax Return and not Box 16 which totally disregards the actual state of the business, which is trying to recoup losses in earlier years?

Hi Isaac

Thank you so much for your reply.

I am pleased to see that you confirm that the relevant income to be declared for student loan purposes is "total taxable profit minus allowable expenses" and that "if they provide their gross income, they should declare their total allowable expenses".

My parents declared their gross income and deducted the allowable expense of their loss incurred from the business in the previous year - this is an allowable expense for tax purposes and is shown on the SATR Partnership Form SA104S at Box 17.

However, your guidance on your application forms erroneously ignore Box 17 losses, and only ask for the amount shown in Box 16. Box 18 is in fact the actual Box that shows the partnership profit after the allowable expenses shown in Box 17. This to my mind is an error in your guidance - you shouldn't be asking for Box 16 - you should be asking for Box 18 because that is the figure that takes into account the allowable expenses of the loss from the previous year.

Box 18 on the Form 104S even calls itself the "taxable profit" - but Box 16 only calls itself the "adjusted profit"!

Do you see my point? You have confirmed in your reply below that SFE require the taxable profit for the relevant year, and Box 18 is the "taxable profit" - not Box 16!

Could you confirm that SFE accepts that the net taxable income is indeed the Box 18 taxable profit figure.

SFE is going on Box 16 adjusted profits and not Box 18 taxable profits in assessing my loan, and this leads to an inequitable outcome where my my loan entitlement is much reduced but my parents do not have the resources to subsidize me because they are still trying to repay business losses from previous years from their current profit?

Do you understand that their is a clear contradiction in your guidance - Box 16 is not their taxable income - but Box 18 is their taxable income!

kind regards

Beccie
Beccie