Emergency Tax/Rebate Help

[Eve]

Tax makes me cry :( No, really! I rang HMRC earlier to try and get my tax code sorted as they've emergency taxed me for the last 3 months pay and I think I'm still owed some from previous pay.

Since before the start of the tax year in April I've been at the same place, initially temping (paid weekly per hour) through one agency and then transferred to another agency (same pay basis and emergency taxed then which I don't think I got back) then was taken on properly by the place I was temping for so paid by them on monthly salary from early August.

I've been emergency taxed for every pay since being taken on, three now.

HR said to ring HMRC so I did and they say I owe them money when I thought they owed me (a fair bit!).

I couldn't understand what she was trying to say as to why as to me the figures don't add up, she suggested that I was paid by two places in one month relating to the personal allowance and I'm wondering if my accrued but untaken holiday pay paid on transferring (both times - I didn't take any holidays whilst temping) makes a difference.

Has anyone got any easy ways I can calculate the tax I should have been paying (bearing in mind whilst temping I was on an hourly rate and paid weekly and now monthly pro rata salary)

I'm going to go through my payslips and P45s and see if I can get some figures together but I'm not great at numbers/tax and Excel and I have a hate/hate relationship. My last P45 also seems to have gone astray between work and HR if this could cause a problem? I'm trying to find my copy as to the figures.

I had an emergency tax rebate from the first agency as they emergency taxed me when I started with them after doing two days temping with a different agency. Need to check when though I think that would only relate to pay received prior to the start of the tax year in April

Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

[boxtops]

Assuming that you have no special/personal expenses etc, your basic coding should be 747L - that means you can earn £7470 in this tax year gross before you pay any tax at all.
However in practice what the taxman does is divide the £7470 by 12 so you get a twelfth deducted every month.
Add up all your gross pay amounts from your payslips, and see what it comes to.

[Eve]

Hi Boxtops, thanks for that. Have been going through making an Excel spreadsheet of my pay for this month (hence the delay, had to go through all my temping payslips!). I'm hoping I can find someone who knows how to work it all out properly with the differing payments per week (if they were the same I think I'd be ok working it out) with temping and holiday pay then to monthly. My brain is fried!

[boxtops]

One of your employers must be your main employer, so the tax allowance should be set against that - all the rest should be taxed at basic rate, IMO. If I were you, I'd ring your tax office - I have to contact them from time to time and they are very helpful, they don't try to blind you with science.

[twix123]

Jenna

The following link is to the HMRC employers tax calculator, which would enable you to work out what tax you would have paid if your tax code was the basic 747L (if you know it should be different you can enter whatever it should be). This will allow you to calculate both weekly and monthly tax figures from April 2011. You will need to keep running totals of both the earnings and tax as they need to be entered when making the next calculation. Holiday pay makes no difference, just add in in to the earnings when it was paid.

http://payecalculator.hmrc.gov.uk/PAYE0.aspx

Good luck

[factor-fiction]

Can I just check that when you say you are being 'emergency taxed' you mean you have a BR tax code on your main income and are therefore paying 20% on all your income from that job and therefore getting no tax free allowance.

Is that right- do you have a BR tax code on your current job?

And was there also a BR tax code for your previous job?

If you have (or if HMRC thinks you have) two jobs HMRC shouldn't tax both at Basic Rate (unless there are other factors such as pension in payment). You should be able to choose how to split the tax allowance. Just tell them to keep / put your old job as the BR rated one and to apply your standard code (747L) to your current job.

Once you get the codings right the tax deductions and any rebate due will be sorted out within a month or two.

So, I wouldn't worry about using spreadsheets for now- the main thing is to get your codings right.

[Eve]

That you all, really helpful. I'm on an 0 MT1 or something similar. I panicked as when googling it came up as having used up all your allowance (not a chance on my figures). HR said not to worry as it is now an emergency tax code. I was on BR when I changed agencies but that got sorted and I got a rebate back.

I worked out all my figures last night and still comes up they owe me so rang again this morning when them as back up.

She was really helpful. Seems one of the agencies may be to blame as it seems a figure on one of my P45s might be wrong and counted some pay already been accounted for under a previous P45 following the agency transfer.

She couldn't tell me exact figures over the phone and is confirming them in writing but her reaction seemed telling when I told her what I had actually been paid.

So if that's right, HMRC think I've been paid a lot more than I have and haven't paid enough tax when I've actually paid way more than I should so they've been taking it back through my wages (which I thought was emergency tax).

At least I have some kind of explanation now rather than just you owe us so I can try and get it sorted before my next pay date. My salary has over halved with the recession so it makes a big difference as they've been taking double the tax I should pay, not even accounting for my pension contribution.

I'm trying to get a copy of my P45 from work and have contacted the agency asking them to check so will hopefully get an answer and something sorted soon. Thanks for all your help. Will defnitely be using the calculator :)