HELP!Emergency taxed even though p45 given

DVardysShadow

Cate1976 wrote: »

I was only in the job for a few weeks, not sure how it works if you stay in the job long enough to get proper code. In a way it might help OP to know that if the information I was given was correct which is that excess tax paid while on BR isn't repaid until after the end of the tax year as at least they won't be expecting it back when they get proper code.

OP: You probably know this but you need to contact tax office which your employer is registered with which might not be the one nearest to where you live.

OK, it may help OP if she has to leave the job before getting the tax sorted - but assuming she stays, it is a needless worry.

chrisbur

Cate1976 wrote: »

I was only in the job for a few weeks, not sure how it works if you stay in the job long enough to get proper code. In a way it might help OP to know that if the information I was given was correct which is that excess tax paid while on BR isn't repaid until after the end of the tax year as at least they won't be expecting it back when they get proper code.

OP: You probably know this but you need to contact tax office which your employer is registered with which might not be the one nearest to where you live.

I think that a better understanding of what is required for you to pay the correct tax when you change jobs would be helpful here. The following is a bit simplified, there are other problems that can occur ossasionaly.

Your new employer needs three bits of information to work out your correct tax and to make any adjustments required in your first pay after these details are added. They are your tax code number, your taxable earnings before you started in your new job and the tax you have paid so far on these taxable earnings.
If all goes as it should these details are on your P45 and if this is issued in time and the new job starts paying you using these details and on the week/month after the P45 is issued you should hardly notice any chage in your tax other than hopefully that caused by your new job paying you more money.
But problems can happen, either the P45 is issued to late to be applied right away in the new job or it gets lost so there may be a period when the P45 details are not on your new job's records.
In the first instance if there is no P45 your new employer should ask you to fill in a P46 which will allow them to use the emergency tax code, this gives you the basic tax allowance that everyone gets applied usually on a week by week or month by month basis. Problem is that a lot of employers cannot be bothered with doing this so just send in the P46 as if the employee has refused to fill it in, and so use the tax code 0T instead of the emergency code usually (but not allways)resulting in extra tax being paid untill it is sorted out.
Either the P45 eventualy turns up or the tax office issue a P6 which is a tax office version of the P45 details. The new employer now has the three bits of information they need and can now work out what tax is owed and make any adjustment to what has been paid so far (sometimes tax is owed to the employee sometimes they owe tax) and this adjustment goes on the next payment they make after recieving the P45 or P6.
This then corrects the employees tax and they continue from then in their new employment paying the correct tax.

Your tax is correct when the full details (tax code, taxable earnings and tax paid) are used by your new employer whether you were on BR 0T Emergency or whatever.

Sometimes the previous gross and tax are not known by the tax office (not reported by last employer) or the employee does not want their new employer to know these details, then your tax code may be applied on a week1/month1 basis and under these circumstances no adjustment can be made for over or under deducted tax untill either the old employer supplies them to the tax office or untill after the tax year end.

A_Phoenix_of_Tangerine

I've been following this thread with interest, and was just wondering whether you might know the answer to this question, Chrisbur:

Will the tax office after a certain amount of time automatically detect the need for a P6 to be issued, without any prompting from an employee / employer?

If so, how long into a new job would this process generally take?

chrisbur

A P6 would normally be issued as a result of recieving a P46 from the employer. If the employer has forgotton to do a P46 then the tax office would not know that the employee had started there. If you have been waiting for your tax to be sorted I would recomend contacting the tax office, you would then at least know if they were aware of where you were now working, and who knows it might even speed up the process.

Cate1976

Thanks for that chrisbur, I was also claiming JSA at the time so didn't have P45, job was only a few hours each week for a couple of weeks.

Trying to claim back the excess tax I'd paid resulted in me being given wrong information. Short story is I went to local tax office for where I was living. By this time I was working full time, tax office told me I'd have to claim the tax back by going to the tax office for my main employer. I was living in Skegness working 2 jobs and Louth tax office told me that to claim back the tax could only be done if I travelled to Glasgow. Got number for tax office in Glasgow and phoned them to be told that they'd send me out the form, gave me their name and said to mark the envelope FAO name and they'd process it urgently as I'd been given wrong information.

That's not the only time I've been given wrong information about claiming tax back.

OP: In your situation I'd contact the tax office which your employer is registered with and find out if they've received the details from your employer and ask them to adjust your tax code asap. If they won't help you then next place would be CAB.