Question re student loan repayment

fabulous_girl

I graduated in 2007 and have been faffing around in a load of fairly random jobs since. I am now working for an organisation on a casual basis, and I get the hours that are given to me. Its busy at this time of year and will quieten right down in the summer. (Perhaps I should be more ambitious but I am trying to sort out my own business, and there's not many jobs at the moment anyway!)

Yesterday I opened my weekly payslip and saw that I had paid 6pounds of my student loan- my first payoff since graduating.

My question is, do they work it out based on what you earn weekly? Eg, i paid nothing last week as i worked 43 hours x 6.47 which amounts to 14466 over the year.
This week I worked 46 hours x 6.47 which amounts to 15476 a year.

Does this make sense? Basically, I am asking if i will now make weekly payments for all of eternity, or whether i will only make payments it i work over 44 hours that week?

Lokolo

They work it on a PAYE basis. So if you get paid weekly they will work out if you worked X that week you pay it.

If you carry on working 46 hours a week you will pay. When you stop, you will stop paying it.

whitfreak

Student loan repayments are calculated over your pay period. I.e. if your paid weeky then your employer will use the weeky tables, monthly the monthy tables to work out how much to deduct from your wages. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxtables/sl3.pdf for the tables they use. Unfortunately tables assume a stable income, so bonuses, overtime and alike can put you over the weekly limit even if your not likely to reach the year limit. So if your pay drops back below the weekly limit then you wont pay any more.

However it is likely that you would have repaid more than the minimum required if your pay keeps hopping into repayment and out again. You are able to claim a refund on loan overpayment though PAYE from the SLC. However you can only do this once they've received all the information from the taxman. So you can get the overpayment back but you'll have to wait until the well into next tax year for all the information sharing to occur. If you do claim a refund they'll send you a cheque and the total you owe will go up again.

The refund is not automatic, so it just comes down to whether you think its worth the effort to get back a year after the event.

argood

whitfreak wrote: »

Student loan repayments are calculated over your pay period. I.e. if your paid weeky then your employer will use the weeky tables, monthly the monthy tables to work out how much to deduct from your wages. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxtables/sl3.pdf for the tables they use. Unfortunately tables assume a stable income, so bonuses, overtime and alike can put you over the weekly limit even if your not likely to reach the year limit. So if your pay drops back below the weekly limit then you wont pay any more.

However it is likely that you would have repaid more than the minimum required if your pay keeps hopping into repayment and out again. You are able to claim a refund on loan overpayment though PAYE from the SLC. However you can only do this once they've received all the information from the taxman. So you can get the overpayment back but you'll have to wait until the well into next tax year for all the information sharing to occur. If you do claim a refund they'll send you a cheque and the total you owe will go up again.

The refund is not automatic, so it just comes down to whether you think its worth the effort to get back a year after the event.

Actually if it's in the middle of a financial year then the deduction should still be with the OP's employer so they should be able to refund her the money.

If they can't do this and the OP has to wait until the end of the financial year for a refund then it'll be offered as a BACS credit rather than a cheque.

whitfreak

That maybe true of income tax, but I didnt think it was true of loans repayment... But then again I've based what I've said on what I've read on the SLC website, so it might be possible to get it back from the employer before the taxman knows anything about it. Worth a try I suppose.

Your correct that its going to be a BACS credit in general rather than a cheque.

Lokolo

No this is not true, its the same as NI.

whitfreak

Not true that you can reclaim it as you go? or Not true that you can't reclaim it full stop?

I agree on the first point, but i've just never tried so could be wrong. But argood is the first person I've heard say that you can.

On the second, the following link says that you can reclaim overpayment, but it takes a while. http://www.studentloanrepayment.co.uk/portal/page?_pageid=93,3867326&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL (Second paragraph from the bottom).