Tax Calculation help

ktrainer

Can someone help please, my husband has just received 3 tax calculations in the post for the periods 09/10, 10/11 and 11/12. THe first one stated that he had underpaid tax by £933.60, the second stated he had underpaid by £1121.20 and the final one (11/12) stated he had underpaid by £423.60. Initially when we looked at these we worried and thought that we had to add the 3 amounts together and repay all of them which comes to around £2500 but on closer inspection I can see that on the 10/11 form the figure of £933.60 is included in the adjustments section and on the 11/12 form I can see the amount of £1121.20 in the adjustments section. Does this mean that he actually only owes £423.60 (the amount from the 11/12 form). He's really worried about this and I just want to try and get some advice before he phones the Inland Revenue. These adjustments by the way were for a BUPA scheme that my husband used to be a member of at work until he realised that his membership had lapsed about 18mths ago but the deduction was still being made from his salary. He wrote to Inland Revenue to tell them about this and this is when we received the 3 tax calculations.

Any help would be appreciated. Many thanks

SeduLOUs

Why would you write to HMRC to tell them that you are not getting BUPA anymore? That makes no sense to me.

To check the calculations you need to dig out your old payslips and P60s etc and match them up to the calculations to check that they are right. A girl at my work got one of these suggesting she owed £500 and when we checked against payslips they were incorrect and she was actually owed £150.

With the BUPA thing, was he actually paying for the BUPA membership out of his salary? Or did work provide this as a benefit to him on top of his salary? If it's the latter, then the cost of the BUPA is viewed as income even though it isn't on the payslip, and you are liable to pay tax on that amount.

ktrainer

Yes he was paying the BUPA membership out of his salary approx £50 per month - we only realised his membership had lapsed when he tried to use BUPA recently. I'm not disputing that he should pay tax on it if it was a benefit all I'm querying is how the tax calculation works that's all, why have we received 3 of them and how do we know which is the amount we should pay?

SeduLOUs

OK, but again, if there was a salary deduction for BUPA which has now stopped, why did you write to HMRC? It isn't a benefit if he has been paying for it (assuming that the £50 was deducted post-tax) and HMRC don't need to know. You may have confused the issue by leading HMRC to believe that he was getting a benefit that hasn't been taxed through payroll when this isn't the case.

I can't tell you the amount you should pay without looking at the paperwork. Firstly I would advise digging out old payslips etc etc to check that the income on the statements matches what he has been paid. You can then use tax calculators which are all over the internet to check that the tax for each year has been calculated correctly. Once you are happy that the main figures in the calculations are correct you can phone HMRC to clarify how the statements follow on from each other and what the final amount owing actually is.

ceh209

all I'm querying is how the tax calculation works that's all, why have we received 3 of them and how do we know which is the amount we should pay?

Yes the calculation will be cumulative so HMRC think you owe £423.60 for all 3 years combined.

However as others have said you need to check whether they've got their figures correct or not!