Complicated Tax Situation- Student in need of rebate!

dcardwell

Hi there,

I am a student, so money is always tight as you can imagine! I've been in a part time job for about two years now. I have paid about two thousand pounds in tax over the two years which I shouldn't have been paying.

I called up the tax office today and they were less than helpful, so I was hoping that someone here could shed some light!

Here's my situation:

Two P60's.

P60 One is from 2009.

-It states I have paid £650 in tax when I only earned £3000.

-It has my wrong national insurance number, along with a spelling mistake in my name.

-This wrong information was used by my employers for that whole year.

-Tax office informed me today "As far as we are concerned you didn't pay that tax". Slightly suspicious. This is a sizeable sum paid by me into the system and I have my doubts that it can just be ignored.

-The wrong information, certainly the incorrect spelling of my name was my employers fault. The fact they mispelt my name suggests they were probably the ones who mispelled my NI Number too.

P60 Two is from 2010.

- £1500 tax paid, £7593 earned. Again, too much tax paid I suspect.

-This year I had informed my employers of the mistakes.

-They corrected my name but NOT my national insurance number! I stupidly assumed it was sorted at the time, but evidently not. So this P60 has my wrong NI number.

-Again the woman in the tax office said there was nothing she could do.

My dilema

I am pretty hard up for cash at the minute. I have paid over £2000 pounds in taxes over the last two years which I shouldn't have. I'm only 20 years old so I'm not earning much at the moment, I have not been allowed a student loan this year, and I have rent to pay.

I understand it was probably my responsibility to make sure the information on my payslips was correct but

- I provided them with the correct info on my application form two years ago!

- I also corrected them after a year and STILL my info was wrong!

is there anything you suggest I could do?

Thanks!

chrismac1

The root cause of this problem is a common one. Payroll clerks all too often operate on "autopilot", these errors are then compounded by HMRC staff acting on the "jobsworth principle". Hence a very easy system to operate - PAYE - ends up with over 6 million blunders in it. It looks to me like you've been put on a "BR" tax code here and paid basic rate tax on everything - which would have been correct ONLY if these jobs were your second jobs at the time, and the other job was the one getting your full ration of tax-free allowances and a "647L" code.

For 08-09 you should have paid zero if this was your only job. For 09-10 it should have been £223.60. Another issue you won't have thought about is that with the wrong NI number used it is very possible your NI contributions in these jobs have not been recorded properly. You can check this via the DirectGov website which I can't post a link to from here. I wouldn't be surpised if so far you've paid NI and got nothing to show for it, it's not unusual and I've advised all my clients to check theirs.

So what can you do to sort out this mess?

Firstly I would write in to your tax office with what you've already said on here. This won't achieve much because there is a 13 week mail queue, but at least you'll have a written record which can't later be denied that you've raised this matter with them.

It may also be worth trying the helpline again. Some of them are more helpful than others.

In the absence of any promises to repay coming out of that, you could insist on having a Unique Taxpayer Reference set up and completing what in your case is a very easy tax return for these 2 years - which has the drawback that you'll be asked to fill one in for at least the next 4 too. The HMRC staff who post on this site will be against this approach. The advantage is that you can put the correct NI number on your returns, and within 3 weeks of submitting (but be warned, it can take 8 weeks or more for them to issue you with a 10 digit number, yes it really is that bad!) the returns the cash will appear in your nominated bank account so there's a fighting chance you'll have it by Christmas.

Having filed your tax return with the correct NI number on it, as well as getting the tax back you have also given HMRC an undeniable record of your employment earnings in those tax years. So if your NI record proves to be incorrect the fault can be proved to lie with HMRC and not you or your employers.

CLAPTON

you need to write to HMRC explaining the situation enclosing all the relevant details (obviously keeping copies)

presumably you have now corrected the spelling of your name and the NI number with your employer

you should check that your tax code is 647L and not BR

dcardwell

Thanks very much for the replies! It really says a lot for the Inland Revenue when someone manages to get ten times more advice and detail on an internet forum. I appreciate it!

My tax code has changed from BR to 647L, yes, but my employers do not have my correct national insurance number. I intend to sort this out today. I was under the impression that they had (I don't know my NI number off by heart and I've got it wedged between a mountain of files, so looking at it on the payslip would never ring a bell with me, whether it was right or wrong- dug it out today though), only to find out today when I called the tax office that in fact my name wasn't attached to that NI Number.

I'll certainly keep going with this issue. After Christmas I'll be in trouble if I can't get my hands on my own cash.

One thing the tax office said to me that might be of some merit though, was that I should talk to my employers about it and obtain some records from them? Does anyone know what records I would need? I work for large company so I would probably have to contact payroll about it.

chrismac1

They had a legal obligation to issue you with a form called a P60 by 31 May following the end of each tax year on 5 April. This should have all the information you need to either sort out this mess on the phone or by letter, or to complete your tax form if it ends up coming to that.

dori2o

dcardwell wrote: »

Thanks very much for the replies! It really says a lot for the Inland Revenue when someone manages to get ten times more advice and detail on an internet forum. I appreciate it!

My tax code has changed from BR to 647L, yes, but my employers do not have my correct national insurance number. I intend to sort this out today. I was under the impression that they had (I don't know my NI number off by heart and I've got it wedged between a mountain of files, so looking at it on the payslip would never ring a bell with me, whether it was right or wrong- dug it out today though), only to find out today when I called the tax office that in fact my name wasn't attached to that NI Number.

I'll certainly keep going with this issue. After Christmas I'll be in trouble if I can't get my hands on my own cash.

One thing the tax office said to me that might be of some merit though, was that I should talk to my employers about it and obtain some records from them? Does anyone know what records I would need? I work for large company so I would probably have to contact payroll about it.

As they have asked you to provide some records, I would assume then that for the 2008/09 year they have not said you didn't pay that amount of tax, but rather they have no record for that tax, possibly down to your employer submitting incorrect information on the P14.

The tax office therefore will be looking for you to submit the details of any income you had in the 2008/09 tax year. This includes detaiilsfrom any P45's, p60's you had from any employer or the jeb centre in this time frame.

You will need to write to them, with this information and they will complete the assessment for you.

You can do as chrismac1 says and request a self assessment form, but beware, although you are in a refund position for 08/09 and 09/10 and therefore will not face any late filing penalties for 08/09 if you were to ignore the request to complete a 2010/2011 tax return, which is likely to be issued, the you would face a penalty for late filing no matter what the final tax position is at the year end. In this instance a self assessment is definately not required.

There is a backlog of post at the moment, approximately 14 weeks for ordinary post, and 4-6 weeks for repayments.

dcardwell

dori2o wrote: »

As they have asked you to provide some records, I would assume then that for the 2008/09 year they have not said you didn't pay that amount of tax, but rather they have no record for that tax, possibly down to your employer submitting incorrect information on the P14.

The tax office therefore will be looking for you to submit the details of any income you had in the 2008/09 tax year. This includes detaiilsfrom any P45's, p60's you had from any employer or the jeb centre in this time frame.

You will need to write to them, with this information and they will complete the assessment for you.

You can do as chrismac1 says and request a self assessment form, but beware, although you are in a refund position for 08/09 and 09/10 and therefore will not face any late filing penalties for 08/09 if you were to ignore the request to complete a 2010/2011 tax return, which is likely to be issued, the you would face a penalty for late filing no matter what the final tax position is at the year end. In this instance a self assessment is definately not required.

There is a backlog of post at the moment, approximately 14 weeks for ordinary post, and 4-6 weeks for repayments.

Thanks for the advice! One thing that was made clear (I realise I may have misinterpreted being told that there was no record of the tax) was that there was nothing that could be done about the tax paid in 08/09 with wrong national insurance number and name.

I suppose this leads to my ultimate question- is there any chance that I <i> can't </i> get this money back?

dori2o

dcardwell wrote: »

Thanks for the advice! One thing that was made clear (I realise I may have misinterpreted being told that there was no record of the tax) was that there was nothing that could be done about the tax paid in 08/09 with wrong national insurance number and name.

I suppose this leads to my ultimate question- is there any chance that I <i> can't </i> get this money back?

The way to get the money back is to send them the P60.

I wouldn't hurt to get a letter from your employer explaining that they made a mistake with the name and national insurance number or a 'statement of earnings' from them for 2008/09 with your correct name and national insurance number on, but in no way is it a requirement that you do this.

chrismac1

What you've been told on the phone is utter hogwash! Of course if you've paid tax which you should not have paid you are entitled to a refund, even if an error was made by your employer. If this was not the case, then the 3 million plus refunds recently announced by the head of the HMRC would not be taking place.

In the end, the method of writing to them with a copy of the P60s and info. from your employer will work. I wrote such a letter on 13 August on behalf of a client who is due back £1,600 in overpaid PAYE. As yet there has been no response from HMRC. So on that basis the earliest you could expect a response to a letter would be 11 December. If that response was anything other than "Fair cop, we are doing your refund" then you'd need to send another letter which would take at least another 2 months.

My client is very well paid and so this delay is a nuisance but not a disaster, in the end he'll get his tax back plus interest. If his finances were more marginal and this was an 08-09 return (it's 06-07 which can't be filed online) I'd have advised him to get a UTR and do a return, and he'd have the cash back by about 31 October or so.

So you need to weigh up how much of a delay you can afford.

System

dcardwell wrote: »

My tax code has changed from BR to 647L, yes, but my employers do not have my correct national insurance number. I intend to sort this out today. I was under the impression that they had (I don't know my NI number off by heart and I've got it wedged between a mountain of files, so looking at it on the payslip would never ring a bell with me, whether it was right or wrong- dug it out today though), only to find out today when I called the tax office that in fact my name wasn't attached to that NI Number.

Given the problems with your National Insurance number I would suggest you take several forms of identification (including photographic and birth certificate) down to your local Jobs and Benefits office and ask them for confirmation of what your true National Insurance number is.
Your tax refund aside you need to get any national insurance contributions you have paid credited to you so that you have eligiblity for any benefits such as JSA if you need it and have them count towards your state pension.

If your employer has been submitting returns with incorrect details for you them some other poor person could be having a similar battle with HMRC and denying they ever worked for your employer.