Jury service allowance

[Sue Balou]

I recently did jury service and was paid 414.85gbp by the court for loss of earnings (plus travel expenses). My employer said they would deduct this exact amount from my next pay, which they have done. I was expecting this to come off my net pay but they have deducted it from my gross pay which means my tax/ni/pension are all lower than normal.

My net pay has only been reduced by 272.02 gbp, so I'm 142.83 gbp up on the deal.

I have queried it with payroll but they say it is correct, they have treated the jury allowance are unpaid leave and tax/ni apply. So, now I'm thinking that I should declare the court payment as untaxed income at year end. I don't normally do a tax return as all my earnings are from my employer.

I don't want to get caught out with this. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks, SB

[woofgang]

best advice would be to ask the tax office.

[Davethedog]

Your payroll must have dealt with this in the past. Not only that the travel costs are not taxable as it was your money.

Leave it be.

[Skyline D]

Your payroll department are wrong. There are more details here:
http://www.hmcourts-s...ice/faq_employers.pdf

Your employer is supposed to process your payroll as normal and then simply not pay you the appropriate net amount. That way your tax and ni is correctly paid over. The travel expenses should certainly have no relevance here (it's not entirely clear from your first sentence if the £414.85 includes travel expenses or was paid in addition to them).

Is it worth worrying about? Probably not. Technically you haven't paid enough tax (or NI) but there's not a chance of anyone noticing it and even if the Revenue were aware it would hardly be worth their while bothering with it for the £30 or so you've gained on the deal.

[Sue Balou]

Thanks for the answers.

Skyline D - the travel expenses were paid in addition to the amount I quoted and there's no issue with that. I think payroll have made an error - but they insist they have made the deduction correctly.

I think I will leave well alone, at least I have queried it and as you say it's a relatively small amount.

Thanks, SB

[Dodger666]

Paying someone 414.85gbp for jury service must mean it costs the taxpayer millions to provide the juries throughout the UK annually..

That's probably the reason the Government is looking into scrapping the 70 age limit on serving on a jury.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8571930.stm

What's the betting that if it does get introduced the majority of Jurors will be pensioners who don't need paying loss of earnings. Let's hope the hearing aid loops are all working efficientyl in the courts, and there are not too many stairs to climb.