Tax implications - being re-employed by same company after taking voluntary severance

kingmidas1962

I hope there are some Tax experts out there as I seem to be unable to find the answer to this myself! I took voluntary severance from my last employer in the Summer of 2011 and had a tax free lump sum paid to me as I earned below the threshhold at which it becomes taxable. I am looking at returning to the same company at some point and have had various information about the time which must elapse before I can return, and still have to pay no tax on the payout I was given. I had some very vague guidance from personnel that it was one year - but no reply to my question about whether this is one CALENDAR year, or on TAX year which would mean the difference between seeking re-employment there in April or August this year. Any ideas anyone?

Thanks in advance!

Andy_L

As far as HMRC are concerned it doesn't matter as long as it was genuine redundancy & not an attempt to give you a tax free bonus. After all businesses can have a sudden turnaround in fortunes.
As a separate issue the company itself may have an internal policy about recovering the redundancy payment from you

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/EIM13810.htm
"Provided that a redundancy is genuine (see EIM13800), subsequent re-engagement by the same employer or an associated employer does not normally affect the treatment of a redundancy payment."

kingmidas1962

well, it was a severance scheme - and my query is also whether this is treated in the same way as a redundancy? Staff were invited to apply for voluntary severance and their applications were considered individually - mine was accepted because the department in which I worked was dissolved and therefore my position as it stood at the time became redundant.

Thanks very much for your advice - as the link you gave me also leads me to other documents I can investigate.