Tax - TSR guide and questions thread

I know **** all about tax. In fact I dont even understand why I am being taxed. But anyway, I have a sizeable amount that I am trying to claim back and I have no idea about how to go about this.

I have received my P60 from my work and was wondering if someone could enlighten me as to where I go to now in order to turn this unimpressive document into money in my bank?

Thanks

Hi, I don't know whether this is really the right place to ask this as it isn't about general employment, but if anyone can help, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm helping out at some open days at my Uni and I'll be paid £50 per day (for two days). I did one day last year and was taxed £10. Sorry if this is a stupid question, but is this is taxable income? I've found some info about P38 forms and student employment; if I gave one of those to the relevant department at my Uni, would I be exempt from tax or would I have to wait to get a PAYE code and claim it back? I know it isn't much, but if I don't need to pay it, I'd like to get it back
Thanks.

Well, if you're being taxed now based on incorrect personal allowances, you'd be better served by getting your tax code corrected so that any tax deductions are correctly calculated and you can avoid/minimise having to later make a claim for a refund. If you don't know why your tax code is what is is, ask for an explanation and get it corrected now.

Thing is, I've tried getting it corrected before and they did change it, I just don't know what it all means. No one can seem to explain to me how it works either.

Thing that gets me, is that I'm being taxed about £12 each month on the pension scheme I'm getting, but not really being taxed anything on the times I work for Propaganda. I would prefer to swap it around so that they tax my Propaganda job more when I do work, so that I can obtain the full amount (or near enough, as I suppose they'll have to tax some of it) to help me over the summer etc.

A bit of background. I'm 19, left sixth form last year and I've had a gap year. I want to join the RAF however the application process is taking the piss a bit. After failing a part of the process, I'm going to have to wait another 6 months to continue with my application. Right now I am in a full time temporary 2 month job (June to August) (actually there now, typing on my phone in the canteen during my break ). Anyway, I get taxed to high hell (about 33%) because I'm on £7.75/h working 12 hour shifts 5 days a week. After this, probably after being on job seekers for a while, I want to find a part time job until I can join the RAF.

If I earn under £6000 (I think this is the figure) by the end of April 2012 (end of financial year), can I claim back the tax they took off me? And if so, how much can I claim back?

Thanks

My friend resigned from his job today to take up another job in a different city (for personal reasons). When he joined his job he was given a golden hello of £3000 (which was taxed), he is leaving before the end of the period where he gets to keep his golden hello, but he has worked there for quite a while so he only has to pay back 75%.

But, when he was paid the golden hello it was taxed, so in reality he probably only got around half of it. When he pays back the golden hello, the company will want the amount that it cost them, not the money that my friend actually received. What happens to the tax that he paid? Can he claim it back? Does anyone have any experience of this?

I have a full time temporary 2 month job over the summer and I'm getting taxed about 33%. In April I'm going to claim my tax back because I will have made under £7k that year. Would I be able to claim my NI back too? If not, why not?

Thanks

Not a question that I've come across here before... however, I think (though I'm not completely sure) that the position here is that no refund is possible. Not a good answer, I know - sorry!

Perhaps they could take it as a deduction from the wage? Then HMRC would take that into account when calculating your income tax yes? They paid it through their payroll system so I can't see why they wouldn't reclaim it that way.

Most of this is pretty much correct, but it's worth pointing out that as it sounds like you're only just starting to work now it's not as straightforward as multiplying weekly pay by 52 weeks - the PAYE system used to collect income tax works on a cumulative basis so will take account of the fact that you've not been earning for the period between the start of the tax year (6 April) and when you started working.

Without going into the detail of the calculations, I'd expect that (if you've had no other income to date since 6 April) you'd start to see Income Tax being deducted after roughly 14 weeks of work, then you'd have deductions of approximately £20 per week (per freeagent's post) following that. If your total income for the year doesn't exceed £7,475, you should be able to reclaim any Income Tax overpayment in due course (see my guide here for details: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Income_Tax_and_National_Insurance)

freeagent is correct that NICs are not reclaimable based on having a low annual income - they're calculated for each pay period, rather than for the year as a whole.

Hello, thanks for this help, I read the guide however I'm not sure what to do (or whether I should do anythign) I got my first pay yesterday and I was charged £39.80 in PAYE tax, and then National insurance. With the PAYE tax, will I be able to claim this back? As I will earn less than the personal allowance?

Hi all,

As a part of my work contract I have medical cover included. I don't need to make any contribution to this cover, however I have been made aware that as a taxable benefit there is a tax cost to me. I have the option of not accepting this cover and therefore not having to pay the tax cost.

I was wondering, does anyone know how to work out what the tax cost will be? I've not signed up yet so I obviously can't see how much I'll be taxed for it!

Thanks,

The usual position is that you'd end up with an Income Tax liability, calculated based on your employer's cost of providing the benefit (which may well be less than you'd have to pay to take out an individual policy). If you're a basic rate (20%) taxpayer, just multiply this cost by 20% for the effective Income Tax 'cost' to you. Usually, you'd end up settling the additional liability via an adjustment to your tax code, spreading the cost over the tax year - there's an example on HMRC's website here.

National Insurance Contributions (NICs) can also be due on some benefits, but in the case of employer-[rovided medical insurance (a non-cash benefit), I'd usually expect these to be Class 1A NICs, which are payable by the employer rather than by the employee.

Awesome, cheers mate. I'll rep you tomorrow.