Teaching self employed query

pbolding

I am employed as a teacher and paying PAYE but did a bit of extra work for a different employer.
I assumed this employer would pay me gross but it seems under an HMRC rule that I don't really understand here
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/esmmanual/esm4503.htm
they have deducted tax at 40 pct under code D0.
This is because I made four appearances within three months, which this rule requires the employer to treat me as an employee.
Assuming I would be paid gross I had already registered as self-employed and had already done my accounts when I realised what was happening.
Is there any way I can unwind this and claim the tax back via self-assessment, and have this extra work regarded as self-employment, or is the deed done?

jimmo

The link that you gave in your post refers to National Insurance only. It does not relate to Income Tax.
It is therefore perfectly possible that the relationship between you and your "different employer" constitutes self employment ( a contract for services) or employment ( a contract of service).
By the way, if you believe that you are acting as a self employed person when working for anyone there is no way that you should describe your payer as an employer.
Whilst you haven't actually said, my guess is that your different payer is an academic institute of some form and whilst your payer seems to have correctly interpreted the Categorisation of Earners Regulations for National Insurance purposes, it has incorrectly assumed that the Income Tax consequences will be the same.
As things stand you are perfectly entitled to argue that the relationship between you and your different payer constitutes self employment in general law. If you can successfully argue that then whilst your payer would still be forced to deduct National Insurance Contributions from payments to you, because of the Categorisation of Earners Regulations, it would be acting illegally in deducting PAYE tax.
Additionally, I cannot think of a situation where an employer could legally operate code D0 for a new employee. At worst it should be code BR, 20%.
I think you need to consider where you want to take this.
There seem to be lots of things that appear to be technically wrong in your situation and if you are an avid Moneysaver you won't mind spending hours and hours and hours of your time investigating and you could save a few bob.
If you are worried about red tape, my personal opinion is that you don't seem to have done anything wrong and it will all come out in the wash.
If your other payer is a University and you are prepared to explain what you do in your main job as a teacher and what you do for the university we can start to put some flesh on the bones.
Take a look at this which is just a few pages away from the link you posted.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/esmmanual/ESM0110.htm

antrobus

Perhaps ESM4504 - http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/esmmanual/esm4504.htm - might be of some relevance, see the section of 'Occasional lecturers'.

What does it say in the contract with the 'different employer'?

pbolding

To answer queries: the second university reported it to HMRC which gave me a notice of coding of D0.
The work was similar - teaching - but there was no contract save some emails with people who I suspect were not themselves employees anyway.
Noted that I should not call myself an employee.
I will use the above to complain that they have acted illegally and see what happens. Many thanks.

jimmo

Easy there tiger!
If you can establish that the relationship between you and the "second university" constitutes self employment you will have a case. If you can't you will be like a duck out of water and throwing accusations will do you no good at all.
In your first post you said you are a teacher and now you refer to the "second university".
I rather assumed that when you said you are a teacher your main employment was in a school.
Now I get the impression that your main job is in a university and you could be, from my days at university, a lecturer, a mister (MA or MSC), a doctor (PHd) or a professor.
Whether we like it or not it can make a huge difference and whilst we don't need to know your particular specialism we need to understand where your particular expertise fits in within the raison d'etre of the secondary body that pays you.

pbolding

Rather to my surprise, the errant institution has today admitted it was in the wrong and is refunding me the tax it took under PAYE.
They seem to have been swayed by an HMRC rule (that I did not know about) that payment under £1,000 is regarded as not significant and so an individual should not be regarded as an employee. They failed to follow their own procedures in not establishing the employment status before taking my services.
I would not have got here without the help of MSE posters above. Thanks again.