Applying for your income Tax back if you go travelling

alexa0420

Hi all,

I was wondering if you could give me some advice.

IS there a rule whereby you can apply for all the income tax you paid within the present tax year if you are out of the country for a certain time period within that same tax year?

Has anyone done this and how do you go about doing it?

Many thanks in advance.

fengirl_2

if you are not going to work whilst you are abroad, you will be entitled to a refund as soon as you finish work.
If you are going to work abroad and will not be out of the UK for a complete tax year, then your overseas earnings will need to be taken into account and any refund cannot be dealt with until after the end of the tax year.
In both cases you use form P85 available from https://www.hmrc.gov.uk.

alexa0420

Thank you! I do not tend to work abroad. Does this mean i have to stay out of the country for a whole year in order to get my tax back??

Chinkle

Send your P60 at the end of the tax year and they will refund you proportionately for the time you weren't working.

fengirl_2

Chicnkle's scenario is not quite right.
If you are out of the UK for a whole tax year, then you will be non resident for tax purposes and be entitled to reclaim tax up to the date you left.
if you are not going to be out for a whole tax year, you will remain resident in the UK and so be liable to tax on your worldwide income. In that case, your overseas earnings have to be taken into account in calculating any refund due.

Chinkle

But OP has explained they are going abroad travelling not to work.

TM1976

You don't necessarily have to stay out of the country for a whole year just not work in the UK.

The refund will be due not because of being overseas but because you have paid tax through PAYE faster than you needed to. This is because the PAYE system assumes that you will continue to earn at the same rate of pay as you have over the months to date.

Residency probably won't be an issue for you here but you still need to send your P45 with a P85, this will tell your tax office that you are not going to work in the UK again this tax year (if this is the case).

You won't get a P60 unless you start working in the UK again before April, in which case you should present your new employer with the P45 and your final P60 should be correct. If this is your intention you should just keep the P45 and not bother sending it off to your tax office.

fengirl_2

Sorry, I am completely mad, I misread the OP's quesion, Chinkle.

obsessed_saver

alexa0420 wrote: »

IS there a rule whereby you can apply for all the income tax you paid within the present tax year if you are out of the country for a certain time period within that same tax year?

The short answer is, no, you cannot reclaim any tax back if you leave the UK part way through a tax year (even if it's less than the 183 residency requirement).

Please read the whole HMRC6 guide (link) for yourself, but here's the relevant section:

[URL=http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cnr/hmrc6.pdf]HRMC6 Document[/URL] wrote:

10.7 Earned Income from employment when you come to or leave

the UK part way through a tax year

When you stop being resident in the UK

If you leave the UK during a tax year and become non-resident here on the day after your departure, the concession applying to those entering the UK (extra statutory concession A11) works in a similar way. You will pay UK tax on your earnings up to and including the date of your departure but you will not pay UK tax on your earnings after your departure. This concession applies only to earnings from an employment which is carried out wholly abroad.

obsessed_saver

Even if you leave the country, and are not resident, not ordinarily resident and not domicled in the UK, you are still liable for UK tax for income that have arisen from duties performed in the UK. See table
10.10.1 Table 1 – How Employment Income is taxed in the UK in the HRMC6 guide link in previous post.

Basically, what they taketh, you cannot taketh back.

There are two certainties in life: death and taxes.

Pumpkinface_2

obsessed_saver wrote: »

The short answer is, no, you cannot reclaim any tax back if you leave the UK part way through a tax year (even if it's less than the 183 residency requirement).

Please read the whole HMRC6 guide (link) for yourself, but here's the relevant section:

As the other posters have stated, the leaving the country is not relevant in this particular case. The only facts that are relevant is that they worked part of the year and do not intend to work for rest of the year (and I assume they have no other source of income). As such, they have not had the benefit of their full personal allowance, as this would have been pro rated and thus they are entitled to claim back the tax.