Two Jobs Tax

resident

Hi all, I am working full time (39 hours) but am planning to cut my hours down to take up a part time job, so this means I will be working 24 hours for the new employer and 16 hours for my current employer. Does anyone know how this affects me tax wise, will I get taxed more on my second job even though I will be earning the same in both jobs which is £7.05 an hour?

Thanks in advance.

mazza111

You won't get taxed more, but your tax code will be applied to one of the jobs I believe. So on paper it looks like you're paying loads of tax on one of them and lower on the other.

Think that's the way it used to work anyhoo

resident

Thanks Mazza111, ah if that is the way they do it I can see how people would think they were paying more tax on one job but really it all evens out in the end.

agrinnall

I would advise you to be proactive with HMRC on this. The chances are that their default position will be to allocate your full personal allowance (standard is £8105 for 2012/3) to your original job as that's the one they already know about. The problem is that you'll earn less than £8105 in that job, so you would end up paying more tax than you need to on the second job and have to reclaim it.

There are two ways to deal with this. The easiest is for your personal allowance to be applied to the new job, as you'll earn around £11K in that one, so you'll pay a small amount of tax on that and full tax on the other one. The more complicated way is to split the allowance over both jobs, for example by allocating enough to the first job so that you pay no tax on that one and the rest to the second job.

resident

Thanks Agrinnall, that is really useful advice I think getting HMRC to apply the personal allowance to the second job is the way to go definitely don't want to end up having to try and reclaim anything!.

Ideally I would like to just work the second job and do a twenty four hour working week as the shift patterns of both jobs mean I am going to be working a 39hr week over six days but as I don't have any children,disabilities or dependants I don't think I would be able to supplement a 24hr working week with any benefits.

However the second job employer has said that they may be able to give me a full time position later in the year so hopefully the two job situation should only be temporary.