Self Assessment - dodgy past employer leave me with a dilema

londonTiger

you should have chased this up long before the self assessment date. Deadline is today (just submitted mine). This is goin to cause concerns.

You probably wont be able to get the help of an accountant right now. What I would do is declare what you actually received on SA. That way you'll get charged the right amount on your tax return rather than the inflated amount if you were to declare what the p45 says on the SA.

Then phone the tax office to query this. Things like that can get really hairy. The tax office aren't really prepared to deal with that kinda stuff. It takes a while to sort out,.

controversialmike

I know! Hence why i'm on the case right now. I had been chasing it with the employer to no avail and when I discovered that they had closed down, I just took the missing wages on the chin and brushed it to one side.
It really isn't an issue if the IR want to investigate i'm hiding nothing and It's not difficult to prove that i'm being completely honest with my income.

I've decided not to claim the missing wages as a loss but I do want them to know that I have paid tax on over £11k, yet only received £5.5. I just hope they read the notes as it's almost impossible to calculate the Gross figure being asked for.

londonTiger

best bet is to call the IR to be honest. I think they may be busy right now as well, as a few people will fail to meet the deadline and there will be a lot on enquiries made to IR for a few days or weeks after deadline.

It's strange for them to declare income greater than what was actually given. Because the employer has a lot more to lose than you - they will owe the tax directly to HMRC both your deductions AND the employers contributions.

The only scenario is that sometimes they forget to remove you from payroll after you have left the position and they keep on printing off payslips. This would normally get corrected afterwards - but in your case I guess the business shut down and so it did not have to meet any of its debt obligations so didn't bother to correct these.

controversialmike

Well, all figures are now submitted with a detailed summary to elaborate on any discrepancies.

I'd be surprised if they dont contact me as.... it seems they owe me a lot of money this year :embarasse :undecided.

I'll report back when it's all sorted. Fingers crossed.

Thanks again for everyone's assistance. Your time and efforts are very much appreciated.

jimmo

I see you lodged your Return on 31 January thus avoiding the £100 fixed penalty but it may be useful to remember that, as long as HMRC do not open an Enquiry, you have 12 months to amend your Return if you so wish.

Having now looked at your post including the 2 payslips I can’t make head nor tail of the additions. I can follow the deductions for NI Contracted in and Tax Paid but I can’t fathom Net Deductions on the 5 July payslip or if anything is missing from the October payslip.

However I think you would be entirely justified in saying that the July payslip is evidence that you earned taxable pay of £2150 and that your employer deducted £430.00 in tax. That sort of makes sense because on code 0T mth 1 the tax should be 20% which it is.

For me, the October payslip is a bit more of a problem but if the July payslip was your first with this employer it should evidence that you earned taxable pay of £11627.80 and suffered tax deductions of £2464.12 from the beginning of your employment up to 31 October.

The logic falls down a little at this stage because 20% of £11627 is £2325.40. However the effect of code 0T mth 1 in 2011/12 was that the first £2916 in any given month would be taxed at 20%. Anything over that would be taxed at 40%.

Did you have any particularly good months where you taxable pay exceeded £2916?

Did you perhaps have 2 paydays in a single tax month?

Returning to your July payslip I see that you have endorsed that as “not paid”.

As I understand it, the legalese here is that your employer has recorded that it has paid you your net wages and paid the taxman the tax and National Insurance it has deducted from you. If it has actually failed to pay you your net wages that is a matter between you and your employer and of no concern to HMRC. If it has failed to pay to HMRC the tax and NI deductions that is a matter between your employer and HMRC and of no concern to you.

However your major problem in getting a tax rebate is that the evidence you have of tax deductions from your wages are just payslips, not the standard security documents, forms P60 or P45.

You definitely have some work to do to determine, as accurately as possible, your taxable pay and the tax deductions and amend your Return accordingly.

Can you get there on your own or do you need to post up all your payslips?

Even when you have achieved that, certainly in my days as a taxman it would have taken years and years for HMRC to sort this sort of mess out bearing in mind that if your employer has failed to pay you your wages it has almost certainly failed to pay to pay HMRC and, quite frankly, I think about what you want to achieve.

If you want to fulfil your legal obligation to make an accurate Return that should be achievable. Anything else such as chasing HMRC for a rebate is likely to take years of effort. It can be done