The RefundCalculator Editorial Team
Every page on this site carries one collective byline. This is who is behind it, and exactly how a piece of content goes from brief to published.
Who the team is
RefundCalculator is run by a small UK-based team split across three disciplines: tax researchers who work from official sources all day; writers who specialise in translating HMRC-speak into normal English; and engineers who build and test the calculators. Nobody publishes alone — each piece passes through at least two pairs of hands before it goes live, and the whole team shares the byline and the accountability.
What the team doesn't do
- Take commissions tied to what we write or the numbers our calculators show.
- Handle claims, touch your refund, or act as a middleman to HMRC.
- Publish under made-up names or stock-photo experts. The byline is the team — a real group, collectively responsible.
Research from primary sources only
Every topic starts at GOV.UK guidance, HMRC manuals, policy papers or legislation.gov.uk. Professional commentary may add context — never a rate. Competitor sites and forums are never sources of fact.
Drafted for clarity, not clicks
A writer turns the research into plain English with worked examples. If a sentence needs jargon, the jargon is defined where it's used. The free official route is written into every piece from the start.
Fact-check and approval checklist
A second team member re-checks every figure and claim line by line against the source, verifies links and dates, and runs the approval checklist: sourced, current, honest about limits, free route present. Only then is a page approved to publish.
Engineering verification
For calculators, the same numbers must be reproduced by the engine's unit tests at every band boundary plus hand-worked examples, following the six-step release gate in our methodology.
Scheduled re-review
Full re-verification every April, same-day reviews after Budgets and fiscal statements, quarterly route checks — and a public corrections log when something slips. 'Last checked' dates only move when the content was actually re-checked.
How a page gets approved
Publication requires every box on this checklist to be ticked, recorded against the content version:
- Every rate and rule traced to a primary source (GOV.UK, HMRC manual, legislation).
- Figures reproduced independently — testing for calculators, line-by-line reading for guides.
- Limitations written on the page itself, not hidden in a disclaimer.
- The free HMRC route linked prominently, before any commercial content.
- Correct "last checked" date set — freshness earned, never cosmetic.
The same standards are written into our editorial policy, methodology, and corrections process.