Taxed and confused on what I should be taxed!

punkrockprincess

I am a full time student in the UK.

During this year along with my course, I also worked in 3 part time temporary jobs before my (fourth) current job. I earned in total about £7500 and paid at least £960 in tax. I am a bit confused about whether i should have paid tax at all, or if I have paid too much.
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All my jobs were at different times during the year exept the final two, my third job overlapped my current job by 2 days and when I started my current job I was getting taxed at about a quarter of my earnings.

I am not sure how it works, because my current job is a weekend job, and i get paid weekend enhancements so it seems like my wage is really something crazy like £12 an hour, but does that count?

I read somewhere that students dont pay tax, I also read some where that there is a personal allowance of [FONT=&quot]£6,035so should I only pay tax on anything over this?

I am really confused, i wrote a letter to the tax office, but that was 3 months ago and it seems they have ignored me.

If anyone can help me clear up this situation I would be muchly greatful!
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MrsManda

You pay tax as a student but you can fill in a P38 form for jobs which you do solely in the holidays which means the tax office won't take tax from you if you earn less that £6475 during that time. As you've worked different jobs over the year you are likely to have been paying basic rate tax as it can take time to give you a proper tax code.
Ordinarily you will only pay income tax on earnings over £6475 though dependent on how much you earn in a week you may still pay national insurance.
If you go to the Student Tax Advice site you will find more information plus the forms you need to fill in in order to reclaim the tax you have paid.

HTH

punkrockprincess

Thank you MrsManda, I am sure on muy first three jobs I was taxed 10% (although I was still under the cut off) If I work my basic hours with no enhancements, i should get 140 a week, so thats basic rate right? So I think I should be due tax back at some point.

Lokolo

Are you paying Income Tax or National Insurance? Or both?

If you say 10%, its National Insurance, which you cannot claim back.

punkrockprincess

Oh sorry I am paying national insurance, which is 10% and i am also paying tax at what i think is now around 10%, it has settled down after i was paying 25%,

atypical

punkrockprincess wrote: »

I earned in total about £7500 and paid at least £960 in tax. I am a bit confused about whether i should have paid tax at all, or if I have paid too much.

You have paid too much. The first £6,475 should be tax free, that leaves you with around £1,000 which should have been taxed at 20% i.e. £200. The remaining £760 you paid can't be explained by national insurance payments alone. It's best you contact your local tax office by phone.

You cannot use a P38(S) form as you have worked outside of the holidays. Therefore I think the only way you can do it is by claiming back. Without using the P38(S) your tax free allowance is spread across 52 weeks.

melancholly

how do your payments work out over the tax year April 08-April 09 in terms of pay over that period and tax? it should be easy to claim back any over tax for that year and then deal with the current year separately - it may even end up that your £7500 is spead over both years and therefore you could claim it all back!

if you have your P60s or P45s from your old/current jobs, then as atypical says, a quick phone call to your local tax office is probably the best way to go about claiming the money back.