Student working over the summer? Make sure you pay the right tax

kitty1801

Tillystinks wrote: »

Hi

Just to inform you, most employers will not "stop" deducting tax altogether. The HMRC are unclear as to what employers should do and do not tell employers what tax code to use.

I work in Payroll, and quite often have quite a lot of student on them. What most employers do is put you on the standard tax code of 543L (soon to change in september). But please remember your tax free allowance is divided between the 12 months of the tax year and not until your reach the earnings of £5430, so if you work full time in the summer please expect to pay tax, but if once your return to studies contact your local tax office and they will ask you to write to them with a copy of your P45 and you should get the tax paid back. Please don't quote me on this, it is complety up to the tax office if you should pay tax or not.

The reason why employers will more than likely do this is they can get into a lot of trouble if they dont deduct tax from you and they believe the employer should have. They will be fined extremly heavily for breaching the rules, so please dont have a go at the people in payroll, we have to do as we're told.

The employer has very straightforward procedures with regards to coding employees. They either use the code on a P45 from the previous employer, the code based on a P46 the employee completed or NT in the case of completion of a P38(s).

Employers only get in trouble where they do not follow procedures, ie. someone completing a P46 and ticking statement 'A', then the employer using BR (when 543LX should be used) or where they just do not deduct the correct tax based on the coding.

It is up to the employee to declare their status correctly on a P46/P38(s) and not for the employer to decide, they just operate the corresponding code.

If a student completes a P38(s), then the employer should immediately start using the NT code. The completed form is a declaration by the employee and not the employer, so employers should process these as normal and will not get into trouble as long as procedures were followed correctly.

jellybean89

Hi there. I am in my 1st year of uni and got a part time pub job during term time earing under £100 a week at most. I am getting charged emergency tax. I have spoken to my work who aren't being very helpful and neither were the tax office They just said ask my boss. My boss said call the tax office.

I have been working the odd shift over the summer but as i said mostly over term time. I also had a club job last year while i was at university, however i'm not sure if i was charged tax or not. How would I find out then reclaim for both jobs?

Please please help. Extremely broke student reaching the end of my overdraft Thanks.

Lokolo

Call the tax office and say that you are being charged emergency tax when you shouldn't be.

Have you quit your other job or not? As this would likely be the reason why you are paying emergency tax.

Bigdaddy

jellybean89 wrote: »

Hi there. I am in my 1st year of uni and got a part time pub job during term time earing under £100 a week at most. I am getting charged emergency tax. I have spoken to my work who aren't being very helpful and neither were the tax office They just said ask my boss. My boss said call the tax office.

I have been working the odd shift over the summer but as i said mostly over term time. I also had a club job last year while i was at university, however i'm not sure if i was charged tax or not. How would I find out then reclaim for both jobs?

Please please help. Extremely broke student reaching the end of my overdraft Thanks.

Hi, it is very annoying when the tax office say they cannot help, they can! visit an independent student tax specialist website www.studenttaxservices.org.uk , they have all the information you need to know when you start or leave a job and the forms can be downloaded to claim any overpaid tax back. They also have a step by step guide on what to do and templates letter to use when writing to Her Majesty tax collectors!

Hope this helps

hc5dmi

Income Tax accompanied with National Insurance is something which is simple to explain, but so few people understand it.

Irrespective of whether your a student or not every individual is allowed a fixed amount of income to be tax free. This amount rises slightly each year to take into consideration things like inflation. This present tax year April 2008-April 2009 that amount is £6035. So regardless whether you are a student or not you can earn £6035 this tax year without paying any income tax. Also it does not matter whether you have 1,2,3 or even 4 jobs. I myslef am a full time student but have 4 part time jobs and you can choose to nominate one as your main job where you will not pay income tax, providing you earn less than £6035 over the year. The other jobs you would usually pay 20% income tax for everything you earn. At the end of the tax year though, simply write to your tax office (DON'T BOTHER RINGING THEM) and enclose a covering letter with your calculations on and they will and HAVE TO return to you any overpayment of income tax, usually via a cheque.

Also I can not stress enough the importance of Tax free savings which again is underused, every individual 16+ is eligible for an ISA (Individual Savings Account) each tax year. The government allow you to save a fixed amount without paying any tax on the interest which you earn. This amount again rises each year with inflation etc and is currently at £3600 for Apr 2008-Apr 2009. Shop around as most banks/building societies (Building Societies are usually higher rates) will offer you high rates of interest for you allowing them the privilege of holding your money. You can only pay into ONE ISA each tax year so try and use your full allowance each year.

EXAMPLE Joe Bloggs has £3,600 in a current account doing nothing, after a year he may have £3602.00 if he's lucky after interest, with an ISA you could get 6% which would be £3,816 (£216 of free money for doing nothing!)

SkunkTheStudentMoneySaver

Hi, my girlfriend is a student at university, as am i. She got a job for 2 weeks at another university (this is during holidays) but got charged emergency tax. the employer won't accept her P45 as she will need it of she looks elsewhere so she filled out a P43? anyway, it appears that it's actually her tax code which is wrong and was changed from her old job from before she started university and it is "BR" something. She has contacted inland revenue but they said it is up to this univeristy she worked for two weeks at to sort it out. She has been taxed abour £80 plus NI to a total of £120 if i can remember correctly, on a 400ish wage for the two weeks this is a large portion of her earnings which she is obviously in much need of, and she isn't looking at any more work with the university to be able to rack the money back up.. We are under the impression that she cannot claim back until the end of the tax year but so much money obviously needs to be addressed and is now leaving her pockets rather shallow. Is there anything that we can do now to get this mess sorted now and hopefully get a sooner rebate on what she is owed? Any suggestions please... Thanks!

Bigdaddy

SkunkTheStudentMoneySaver wrote: »

Hi, my girlfriend is a student at university, as am i. She got a job for 2 weeks at another university (this is during holidays) but got charged emergency tax. the employer won't accept her P45 as she will need it of she looks elsewhere so she filled out a P43? anyway, it appears that it's actually her tax code which is wrong and was changed from her old job from before she started university and it is "BR" something. She has contacted inland revenue but they said it is up to this univeristy she worked for two weeks at to sort it out. She has been taxed abour £80 plus NI to a total of £120 if i can remember correctly, on a 400ish wage for the two weeks this is a large portion of her earnings which she is obviously in much need of, and she isn't looking at any more work with the university to be able to rack the money back up.. We are under the impression that she cannot claim back until the end of the tax year but so much money obviously needs to be addressed and is now leaving her pockets rather shallow. Is there anything that we can do now to get this mess sorted now and hopefully get a sooner rebate on what she is owed? Any suggestions please... Thanks!

Hi , if she does not intend to work again in the same tax year, then she can reclaim now on form P50, again look at www.studenttaxservices.org.uk to get the form and they tell you how. Sorry to mention this website twice, but that is where I got the info from.

Good luck

Parisian

Hi there.

I am a university student, currently on my summer holidays. I have just taken a 3 week paid job at my university. I am being paid 10 pounds per hour, for 35 hours a week.
I have not had/or am going to have any other job in this financial year.

The other day I filled in a contract, and a P46 form.
Sorry if these are silly questions - but is it correct that I will be paying tax and NI on my salary? & Should I ask them about the P38 to avoid paying tax? Or wait and reclaim that back?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Lokolo

Yes you can fill in a P38, as long as you definately won't get another job after this.

Are you sure you filled in a P46?

Bigdaddy

Parisian wrote: »

Hi there.

I am a university student, currently on my summer holidays. I have just taken a 3 week paid job at my university. I am being paid 10 pounds per hour, for 35 hours a week.
I have not had/or am going to have any other job in this financial year.

The other day I filled in a contract, and a P46 form.
Sorry if these are silly questions - but is it correct that I will be paying tax and NI on my salary? & Should I ask them about the P38 to avoid paying tax? Or wait and reclaim that back?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Hi, if youonly completed form P46 , then yes, you will end up paying tax and NI. From the circumstances you have described , I would suggest you complete form P38s asap. It may be too late to reverse the tax you have already paid , so you still may need to make a reclaim. see my previous posts for further info.