Claim Tax Back

pokerjk

I'm hoping someone can shed some light on claiming tax back for me after spending 3hours on hold this week with the inland revenue.

I have been employed by two companies last year and earned £5155.67 and paid £527.80 in tax. I have this information from both a P60 and P45.

When I finally got through I was spoken to in a horrible manner and he said we need your employment history since 2008 so I suggest you start ringing past employers and asking for P60 and P45's.

Is he for real that I have to do this to claim this tax back?

Many Thanks,
Jamie

System

A few points....

Did you keep a note of your conversation with the person at HMRC who as you put it : "I was spoken to in a horrible manner"

Did you get their name and did you note the date / approx time of the phone call ?

If you have grounds, you could always complain if you think it is worth it ?

Did HMRC say why you needed to provide employment history since 2008 (P60s and P45s from past employers) ?

Your claim for last year seems straight forward if your personal allowance was £6475 tax free, and you only earned a total of £5155.67 from all sources of income, then HMRC owe you a refund of all the tax you paid in that tax year, assuming no tax was owed from previous years.

Can you think if there is any reason why HMRC may not have records of your previous earnings, have your circumstances been changing, maybe being self employed or something ?

pokerjk

Thanks for the reply.

I didn't BAA1, but is it really worth the hassle of getting a template apology email/letter from them sadly.

He just said we need the previous years so we can check or not we have these records.

There has been no big changes at all, I worked for the same company since 2007-2010 as a student. Then have since been employed by two companies this tax year. I guess I'm going to have to ring my old employer up and ask for a P45 as this will have everything since I worked for them on it wont it?

Thanks

System

Your old employer should have issued you with a P60 at the end of each completed tax year, so you should have P60s from them for tax years : 2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10 and then, once you have officially left their employment, they should issue you a P45 for up to that last day of employment with them.

Since you did not have a P45 when you started work for the 2 companies last year, you should have been asked to complete a P46 by each company so that they could inform HMRC of your circumstances of employment.
Did you work for both these companies at the same time or did you work part of the year for company A then finish and start with company B ?
Each time you finish employment, an employer should issue a P45 to you.
It is possible that you may not have been able to tick the most appropriate box on the 1st P46 if you worked for 2 companies at the same time.

What tax code had been set against each of these 2 jobs last year ?

pokerjk

Sadly I don't have any P60 or P45 from my jobs back in 2008 up to 2010.

It wasn't at the same time it was at separate times I was working for the two companies.

My tax code was 657L doesn't mean much to me.

If I am unable to get my P60's and P45 from my old employer are there any other alternative routes to getting these papers?

Many Thanks

System

If they (the employer) never actually sent you P60s or a P45 then they have not followed the tax rules and you should write to them explaining that you never received them and you need copies of your earnings statements for the relevant tax years so that you can send info to HMRC. If they refuse, write to HMRC telling them that the employer will not provide the information, then HMRC may take action against the employer.

However, if it is just that you did not keep copies of the P60s and P45, then you could ask the employer to send you copies of your earnings statements for the tax years.

I do not think most companies would be able to provide 2nd copies of P60s or P45s (AFAIK)

pokerjk

Thanks for your help I will give them a ring tomorrow and hope they still have a copy they can send. If not it looks like I'm screwed

chrismac1

I would not say that you are screwed. I can't see what relevance information from 2007-2008 has for a tax reclaim for 2010-11. All such information will have been provided to HMRC by the employers at the time anyway. Just because someone on the phone from HMRC asks you to start a big paperchase does not mean you have any legal obligation to do it in order to get a PAYE refund for a later tax year.