Tax - TSR guide and questions thread

If you guarantee you won't be earning again before the end of the tax year use this form
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pdfs/p50.pdf

I may work again during this tax year, but I am almost certain I will not go over the tax limit. Does this mean I can still use this form? Or do I have to wait until the next tax year?

You can request a refund using form P50 if you've stopped working before the end of the tax year and either don't expect to be employed again before the end of the year or have been unemployed for four weeks. Take a look at page two of the form.

Great thanks. So I guess I can claim 1 month afterwards.

Another question I have, not directly related to the thread. When looking through my payslips, I just noticed that I was changed to tax code 747l in April. I understand that this is an emergency tax code, however, none of the reasons for this seem to match me. Does anyone know what this could be caused by?

"747L" the standard tax code for 2011/12, reflecting the standard £7,475 personal allowance. You should expect to be given this code from the start of the tax year (6 April 2011) unless there's a specific reason why not. What was your tax code previously?

Ah OK, that makes sense. Mine was previously 647l, which was the standard tax code for last year.

I read here that it was an emergency tax code. However, I guess that was for last year.

Evening TSR,

I am in a little bit of a quandary and I am sorry that this is going to be quite a long post.

Setting the scene:
I did a year in industry as my third year of uni from July 08-09. In the 09 tax year on placement I paid roughly £300 in tax. When my placement finish I then proceeded to work for a month at a hotel during the summer. In this time I paid roughly £40 in tax. I left in August 09 and finally after some chasing received my P45 in December 09. I have just recently discovered the P45s from placement and hotel and the related pay slips. All in all my total salary before tax for tax year 09-10 was £4500. This, you notice is substantially less than the personal allowance for that year.

The interesting bit:
I recently received a rebate from HMRC for £35. I examined my P45 from the hotel and noticed that they had put the "total tax paid to date" as £-305, a negative number.

When I contacted HMRC today they said that that means my employer has repaid the tax in my salary. I have my pay slip from the hotel and they have done no such thing. When I spoke to the hotel they said they had no record from that long ago so there was nothing they could do. This sounds a little dodgy to me but they were ****** when I worked there so is not a massive surprise.

Questions:
Have they basically just shafted me by claiming back my tax but not passing it on and keeping it for themselves? Is there anything I can do as they are denying all knowledge of what they paid me?


Thanks for wading through that and for any suggestions about how to proceed.

TLDR: Hotel i worked for appear to be trying to keep my tax rebate for themselves. What can I do?

I apologise if this has already been covered previously, but...

I'm 22 and going back to University in September, and I understand the basic mechanics of how PAYE works (roughly), but I'm looking for help on this:

Basically for the first half of this tax year I will have been working (around) full time at a minimum wage job and have been taxed accordingly, my question is, when it comes to me starting university and cutting my works hours down to 10-20 hours a week, will I be taxed on that pay? It is, in theory, under the amount before I should start getting taxed (would work out between £250-400 every four weeks), but I'm not sure whether that is applicable to this circumstance, because surely I'll have earned (approximately) £6500-7000 up until this point, which should swallow up my allowance, no? I don't know if it works that I my allowance is divided into the 12 months and I just get taxed after that, if that's the case, does that mean I won't get taxed on my earnings from September if they're below the threshold?

You'll continue to pay Income Tax based on your cumulative income for the year to date...

The way that PAYE works (at least, on a normal, "non-cumulative" tax code), is that it comes your total income to date for the tax year to the proportion of your personal allowance (currently £7,475 for most people) that applies to the portion of the year elapsed - so, after six months, you should have paid Income Tax at 20% on income in excess of (£7,475*6/12)=£3,738. Your Income Tax deduction for the week will be calculated as the movement in your total deduction owed, from the last week to this new position.

Basically, the operation of PAYE isn't as simple as waiting until you've had income in excess of £7,475 before taxing you, but neither does it allocate a fixed part of your allowance to be set against income from each pay period in isolation. Remember that NICs are calculated separately from this.

Does that make sense? It's not the easiest thing to set out briefly in words, so let me know if you'd like some clarification.

I think I understand, yeah. They'll basically just take the new figure of income and put it into the calculation of what they predict I'll earn over the year? Will I continue to pay tax at 20% then?

Hi, i would be grateful if anyone could help me out. Basically i have returned home for summer and will be working full time. I am not really sure what i do with regards to tax? I am aware that i should not be paying tax as i'm a student working over a holiday but I am unsure how i go about this. I think it is a p38 i fill out but on the form it says "total pay FROM dd/mm/yy to dd/mm/yy" which makes me think i do not fill it out until i leave? Also the place i work isn't very organised and i always end up on emergency tax for the few months i am there how do i sort this quickly so i dont get taxed a ridiculous amount. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Just a note - the concession that allows students working only in holiday periods to receive their pay without deduction of Income Tax only applies if your income for the year is expected not to exceed your 'personal allowance' (currently £7,475 for most people).

You're right that the for that you need is form P38(S) (link), but you only need to complete the "Student's declaration" section on the left and not the employer's section on the right. Speed of processing depends on your employer, so I'd just suggest getting the form to them asap. Note that they're not obliged to operate the P38(S) concession, though most employers are likely to.

ok cool, so i just fill in the students bit and send it away to whoever deals with it in my job?