Help with tax code K

clairus

Hello all,

Hoping you can help us shed some light on my boyfriends tax code before he calls the tax office tomorrow:

He just received his 2012-13 tax code and it is a K1347 (!) and that he owes just under £2500 from a previous year. I have checked his previous codes and for 2011-12 he has two letters, both dated the same day, one with a BR code and one with a K758 replacing a 747L. This is the letter that informs him of his £2500 underpayment.
The letters reference him being 'between jobs' which he isn't/wasn't.

He is PAYE. He is employed by the NHS, no company car or healthcare package. His employer changes annually as he is employed by different healthcare trusts.

What would cause the need for a K code?

Many thanks in advance for any help you can give.

[Deleted User]

Sounds like a mistake to me! Ring them tomorrow.

jennifernil

If his employer changes mid tax year, it's possible he has been given his personal allowance a second time by mistake, or that he did not pay higher rate tax when he should have.

You need to look not just at tax codes, but at actual earnings and tax paid in each year to determine if something has gone wrong. Best to go back as far as you can in case there was an underpayment further back that they are claiming to have found.....or do they say in which year this underpayment is supposed to have arisen?

Post the actual figures here if you need help to do that.

Once you have determined the facts, then he can ring them if there is an error.

A "K" code means instead of having a personal allowance, the amount of the code is added to his income and taxed. This way they will recover the underpayment (if there was one).

However, to have almost doubled the K code in one year is strange, unless there is more than one underpayment.

agrinnall

I seem to remember a similar thread a few weeks ago where something like this happened to someone who also worked for various NHS Trusts, maybe there is an issue with the NHS reporting this type of work to HMRC?