Underpaid Tax Letter

magic747 wrote: »

That's originally where I pointed the finger when I first read the letter! The employer was a bit of a 'cowboy' and, while I don't know if this is 100% true or not, we were told that other employees had issues with underpayment of tax in the past when working for him.

As I said before, it's possible that both employers were using this non-cumulative code for an overlapping period. Even if the period of work is not overlapping, payment in arrears can have this effect. In effect a double personal allowance is given for some pay periods. It's not anyone's "fault" as such as it's impossible for the employer to rectify without the P45 so they've done the best they can....

I would definitely ask HMRC to set out the amounts earned in each employment though and give them a sanity check. They do make mistakes with their records. I've had statements of earnings before with major errors and it's possible the employer has made a mistake reporting earnings to HMRC so do your best to check.