Undertaxed - think my last P60 was wrong. What can/should I do?

cw18

I'm not sure this is the right board for this as it's not about cutting tax, but it's the only place I could find that appeared to have questions relating to the Inland Revenue

My income last year was slightly complicated, and the IR wrote to say I'd underpaid -- and on receiving that I immediately phoned to say I thought they'd calculated wrong (and in my favour -- they reckoned I'd not paid tax on £600+, but I reckoned it was twice that). They told me that if I still though it was wrong once I had all the paperwork I needed (this was before I got my P60 and a P45 relating to Incapactity Benefit) I should send them copies of it all with a letter explaining my thoughts and they'd look at it.

It's not that I like paying tax -- but I'd rather it's sorted now than they catch up with me in a few years.....


Anyway my P60 (and P45) arrived way back when, but due to health issues I didn't do more than a cursory check of the P60 -- which normally entails checking the figures on it match my last pay slip. The fact I didn't spot anything weird then makes me think it must do -- though I can't find it today (busy hunting for it, but taking the odd break to retain my sanity).

So I pulled out my last pay slip (I've got my payslips for the year, but only 'cos I didn't file them as I was using them for other problems with work underpaying me for a couple of months after I returned from sick leave) and almost immediately spotted that the taxable pay on it is considerably lower (by £1200ish) than I told tax credits when I calculated the figures myself.

I've figured out what work have done to get the wrong figure, but I'm not sure where I stand -- or whether I can even get my P60 corrected, which will mean they'll have to re-do them for everyone in my office as everyone will be in the same boat as me (won't make me terribly popular!).

My P60 doesn't include the Incapacity Benefit I received last year (which is why the tax office reckon I've underpaid as I returned to work too late in the tax year to get my tax code changed on the payroll system) -- but that's not a problem.

However, my office was TUPE'd to a new employer in May 2007 -- and this is what's caused the problem. We were paid by Employer 1 early in May, and the pay slip from Employer 2 at the end of May includes the payment from Employer 1 in the 'year to date' figures -- which is fine, except Employer 1 overpaid me and had to correct it the second week in May (which hasn't been fed through to Employer 2 -- but this would have resulted in my paying too much tax).

But Employer 1 also owed us some other payments, so we received further 'pay slips' from them in June and July -- both of which they deducted tax and NI from, but neither of which appears to have been fed through to Employer 2 as they haven't been included in the 'year to date' figures. (we had a 'normal' salary from Employer 2 at the end of June between these extras)

So the figures on my last payslip don't include the gross figure of around £1,800 from those two extra payments from Employer 1 -- and if I remove these from the calculations I can more or less tally up with what the tax office say I owe them.


So do I speak to the Inland Revenue and get them to chase work, or do I phone work and kick off with them. I know some people who would say to keep quiet and hope the IR don't spot it -- but I'm not the sort of person can do that !!!

fengirl_2

It is your employer's duty to operate PAYE correctly, so you should go to them in the first instance to resolve this discrepancy. HMRC can only use the figures provided by employers at the end of the year.

cw18

Thanks for that..... normally I would have assumed that to be the case, but as we effectively had two employers in the year I wasn't sure what the state of play was. I obviously don't know whether our original failed to pass figures over, or whether the new one failed to process them