Possible overpaid tax rebate - Do I repay?

hardya

I have been paid or all of 08/09, got my P60, all done and dusted.

My contract finished end of March 09, but the last bit of pay for work done did not arrive until Month 02 of TY 09/10, but you are taxed according to when you are paid right, not necessarily when you did the actual work?

Any way in 09/10 I had several thousand £ pay (taxed as at Month 02) and a little Job Seekers Allowance up until October 2009 when I became a student and will have no taxable income for the rest of the TY. I contacted the IR and they said I could get an appropriate amt of tax back on the this "all free pay and no more taxable income to the end of 09/10" asumption (this happened last time I was a student), so I filled in P50 as instructed and waited.

I now have a refund but it looks too big to me. They have sent me a statement for 08/09!! And it show the pay that I got in 09/10 at month 02 an it shows just £27 JSA, way less than I got. This together with the whole of 08/09 free pay figure and the tax already paid in 09/10 is used to calculate how much I have over paid tax and the refund is the difference.

I think this is wrong and if you use (as I exopected would have been done) all my pay, all my JSA right upto October 2009 and all the free pay for 09/10 then the overpaid tax is less and the rebate would be less.

My experience of 1st line support in government departments is not that good and I thought it worth getting an expert oppinion first.

If they have rebated me too much, do I have to pay it back? How do I repay it? I don't pay tax any more at all as I am a stdent with no txble income

Sorry to trouble, any help or advice greatly appreciated.

mrkbrrws

If you sent a P45 with the P50, does it say you left in March 2009 or does it have a later date?

hardya

mrkbrrws wrote: »

If you sent a P45 with the P50, does it say you left in March 2009 or does it have a later date?

The P45 has DOL 310309, but the payment was made in May 09 and the P45 shows Month 02 and has an 09/10 Tax Code and has correctly calculated tax due (and paid) for 09/10 TY @ Month 02 with 09/10 Tax Code (ie free pay).

What is the DOL (Date of Leaving) REALLY any way?

mrkbrrws

I would write back to HMRC, sending a copy of your P60 for 2008/09 and P45, and explain basically what you have explained here.

If you have banked the cheque they will ask for the over-repayment back, otherwise you could return it and ask for a correct amount to be issued.

I guess when the P50 was received, someone keyed in the leaving date as 31/3/09 and so the HMRC computer produced a 2008/09 calculation, and wrongly using the pay and tax from the P45.

Pennywise

The "date of leaving" on a P45 should be the last pay date so your employer was wrong and HMRC think that the P45 figures relate to 08/9 and not 09/10. Yes, you do need to tell HMRC and will have to repay. They will discover the error when they finally get around to checking/matching the real 08/9 pay details sent by your employer against your records. When they did the refund, there's nothing on the P45 to suggest that it related to 09/10 instead of 08/9, hence why they've used it for the wrong year.

hardya

AS far as I can see the data presented on a P45 is VERY ill defined, unclear and ambiguous and even amongst HMRC employees there are differing 'opinions' as to what DOL maens. Put the TY on the P45, the month or week num and leave the dol off (IMO). Even if it was 'slightly' unclear there are many things that they didn't seem to note:
1. The whole point of the contact, which was explained in writing, was to tell then all my 09/10 income and ask for a rebate based on being student w no income for rest of the year.
2. The P45 had dol 310309, BUT month 02 (later but surely never earlier) and ty0910 tax code.
3. Why only 27 JSA???