339L Tax code Help?

Silmaril

Hi everyone,

I have been trawling the web trying to figure out why my girlfriend is on a 339L tax code after just getting her P60 through from last year which shows her annual earnings as £3617.66

Should she not be on 647L?
Does anyone know why a person would be given 339L?

~SiL

fengirl_2

This is absolutely impossible to answer without knowing her personal circumstances. the only people who can tell her are HMRC. She needs to ring her tax office and ask for a copy of the notice of coding showing this code and then get them to correct it if it is wrong.

chrisbur

A few possibilities;
Was on unemployment benefit ( or other taxable benefit )before starting the job. Instead of passing on the benefit details as previous gross to the new employer the tax code is lowered to account for it.
Has some taxable benefit in the job eg medical cover.
Has or had more than one job at a time so code has been split.

Otherwise contact tax office for explanation.

silverjay

To me it would indicate that there has been an underpayment of tax in previous years so the Revenue have adjusted her code for this year to reclaim the tax owed through her wages rather than send her a demand for the full amount. Or that she has other income or taxable benefits as part of her employment package.

She should have received a Notice of Coding prior to 5th April telling her what her tax code is and there would have been a breakdown of how they have arrived at this figure. She must get it checked as there were a lot of incorrect codes sent out this year.

The actual tax code is nothing to do with the amount earned. It is made up of allowances that can be set against pay. So if she has benefits such as a company car then she is liable to be taxed on this for car/fuel and these adjustments would reduce her tax code to take these taxable benefits into account and ensure she is paying the correct amount of tax.

647L is the basic tax code but this can be adjusted up and down depending on personal circumstances. Also she needs to check if there has been a change in her final tax code on the P60 and the code which is being operated by her employer for the new year. This should be on her payslip. It could be that 339L was for 2009/10 and this has been amended for the new year.

Silmaril

Thanks for the info, during 09/10 she did work for two companies, probably some mistake resulting from this, we'll give the tax office a call thx.

SiL