How and When can i get my tax back??

pbright

Hello,

This is my situation, i am wandering if somebody can help me out as i am truely clueless! I started work for the first time since i left Uni last year, on a casual basis not earning very much, although i have been taxed a large amount due to the way i am being paid. As i am on a causual bases my weekly pay fluctuates, one week ill earn £50(& not be taxed anything on this as i would expect, then the following week i would like a slave earning £450(& being taxed £100 on that). Although the people who are there on a full time basis never get taxed as they have annualised hours and get paid about £200 a week, though they always get paid this, and infact have earned more than me in total since i started in July. Anyway, i plan on leaving at the end of May to go to the stated for the summer, and it would be great to get some money back, todate i have earned about £6,500 there but been taxed over a £1000(£550 NI, £550 th other tax)) where as like i said, the full time people in the same job have earned approx £7,500 and have been taxed nothing or very little. So what can i do, would be great if i could get the money before i go to the states at the end of the year. i have no other income and in the year from last april to this april i will have earned about £7,500-8,000 and fom july when i started the job till this coming july i feel that it will still be under £9000 ill have earned in a year


:-(

My job is no help....so can anybody here help me with the above question???

Bossyboots

You can't claim the tax back until after the end of the tax year as you are still working and therefore still liable to pay tax. The tax year ends on the 5th April so you can send off a letter to the tax office the next day asking them to review your tax for the year. They will not have received the P14 by then so you may have to wait until your employer has sent those in. What might be better is to wait until you get your P60 as you can send a copy of that in case they don't have the P14. They should then refund you the overpayment.

Once the new tax year starts, to reclaim any tax paid then you will have to write in stating that you will not be working any more in that tax year to claim a refund before April 2008.

uncle_ben_2

I'm not an expert by any means, but please don't confuse tax and NI contributions...

Tax is something like 22% of all earnings over £4.5k (roughly). If you've earnt £9k, then half this will be tax free, and then you'll have to pay tax on the other £4.5k; which is roughly £1k. NI is normally payable in addition to this, which goes towards your state pension.

When you are a full-time student, you are exempt from Tax; since graduating though, you will be taxed as I said earlier...

To claim back tax from when you were a student, contact your local tax office - in fact, contact them anyway to check your circumstances....

hope this helps.

pbright

so i have to wait till april. want the money before i go to the states. by the time i had earned 4.5K at the place(and that year) i had been taxed almost a grand....i know they ow me money(or the tax office does should i say)! So what i need to do is contact them in April...or say i leave in May and get my P60...i send this to them, nd they will give me my tax back from april06-april07...which will £500 plus(thats me taking into account the 22% taked off the 3K-ish ill earn ovr 4.5K...is this right, please help, im poor:-) also how long does it take if i do it the april or p60 in may way????

Bossyboots

Sorry uncle_ben but full time students are not exempt from tax. They can have their wages paid without deductions provided they only work in the holiday breaks and that they know in advance their income is not going to exceed the lower personal allowance. That does not apply in this case as the OP has already stated they will be earning more than that. Also, you have missed out the 10% tax band which starts at £5036, the usual personal allowance being 503L

pbright - what tax code is your employer using? If you can post your tax code, personal allowance and pay to date (all of which will be on your payslip) we can work out for you just how far out your payments are at this stage. It may be that your employer is using the wrong code and if this can be sorted out quickly, they may be able to put it right in the March pay but you will have to move fast.

MXW

I suspect your employer may be using the emergency tax code, you can check this by looking on your wage slip. If this is the case then you need to ring your tax office and explain this and assuming they have all the info they need, will issue a cumulative tax code to your employer, any refund you are entitled to will be made by your employer when you are paid again. You will need to do this pretty sharpish as it's getting towards the end of the tax year. To claim a refund for 2007-2008, when you leave the UK, you will need to forward your form P45 along with a completed p85 to claim a refund, however if you are not intending to remain out of uk for a full tax year after 05 April, then the refund will not be made (as you are able to return to UK and receive further income)

krisskross

assuming you earn £8000 during the tax year 2006-2007.You can take off the NI amount as you aren't taxed on that. Gordon hasn't yet has he?

The remainder of your earnings, this is not totally accurate but will give you an idea.

So say you have earned £7500 for the year after deduction of NI, then take off £5035 which is your tax free allowance for the year. So £2465 that Gordon can take his cut from.

the first £2000 is taxed at 10%=£200

the remaining £465 at 22% = £102, thus giving you £302 as your tax liability for the year.

As said previously make sure you have a proper coding notice, although if you have been working there since July i can't understand why this has not been sorted out.

Bossyboots

Using a payslip calculator based on gross earnings of £8,000, I get the results of tax of £409.56 and NI of £359.88 for the year.

krisskross

Bossyboots....love that BTW if i add the NI back in then we do indeed agree as it means a further £110 would be added to my tax bill. So perhaps you can't take off NI before calculating tax. I know pension payment is deducted pre tax and assumed NI was as well.

Savvy_Sue

NI is calculated for the pay period. So if you earn a lot one month and very little the next, your NI payments will fluctuate wildly. There's no refund, no averaging out, no working out what's due for the whole year. It's all based on what your gross pay was for the period your pay's due at the end of, if that makes sense ...

It means you can't take your gross pay for a year and say "You should have paid £x NI on that", because it depends whether your payments were equal amounts or not.

pbright

Confusing. Ill post my payslip details, tax code etc tomorrow. thanks for the help. I am definetly owed tax for this year that i know. What i can tell you is that its not an emergency code, its the same code that my fellow associated are on. Like i said, they have annualised hours and work on a contract basis getting paid for 40hours a week and they earn like £200ish a week, though i am on a casual basis paid weekly and some weeks i work very little and earn little getting taxed nothing, on some weeks i work like a slave earning close to £400 a week...and thats the weeks i get stung. Though on average i work the same and to date since july when i started, have been paid the same, if not a little less that those on a contract, and they have been taxed very little each month, there NI and tax are a little under £400 each since April, though since July and earning the same if not less than them since them, mined is almost £600 each..and thats just since july. My work are no help, but they did tell me that they work it out on a weekly basis. Anyway ill post exact details tomorrow.

by the way, im not moving to the states but just going there for 4months in summer and a couple of hundred pounds in tax rebate would be just great.