P800 and wrong P45 information

billybraggtastic

I recently received a P800 which showed an underpayment for 2011/12 tax year.

The PAYE Income for the year was higher than I understood I had received - it was a convoluted year in which I had 3 jobs.

Employer 1 salary £40k/a from 05/04/11 - 03/06/11 (taxable income £6190)
Employer 2 salary £38.5k/a from 06/06/11 - 10/01/12 (taxable income £21744)
Employer 3 salary £45k/a from 01/01/12 - 31/03/12 (taxable income £10874)

PAYE Income on P800 £45746.

I contacted HMRC and the conclusion was that the Total Pay to Date on my P45 from Employer 2 included the Total Pay to Date from Employer 1. £6190 + £21744 = £27934. On HMRCs advice I wrote to them with this explanation together with P45s and last Pay Slips from each employer for the periods noted.

The response I received did not alter the P800 PAYE Income citing that the figure was correct per the P45 submitted.

Where do I go from here? I have contacted HMRC again and been advised to write again which I will. But will they always consider the P45 to be correct or is there another means to support my position?

Employer 2 is no longer in existence and I can't see the Liquidator being interested in correcting what was their admin error!

thanks in advance
BBT

molerat

I assume employer2 left 8 blank which makes the assumption (incorrectly) that 7 is what they paid you. Write it all out clearly pointing out what the error is and include all supporting payslips, remembering to keep copies of everything you send, and see what transpires. If not sorted to your satisfaction http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/complaints-appeals/how-to-appeal/index.htm when I assume someone more senior who knows what they are talking about will look at it and hopefully see what went wrong.

System

Did you receive any pay after the employment ended? Back pay, unused holidays, backdated bonuses or pay rise? If so, quite often these won't be reflected in your P45. Employers would not issue revised P45s after the event.

The underpayment might not be related to the P45s you already hold.

jimmo

I’m afraid your figures don’t appear to stack up. 6190 +21744 + 10874 = 38808

The P800 shows 45746 so the difference between HMRC and you is 6938.

If the difference was 6190 your logic would have seemed to be sound and there have been quite a number of threads on here recently where income from 1 job has been double counted and HMRC have been pretty quick to sort those out, usually just on the strength of a phone call.

Perhaps it’s the nature of call centres nowadays but it seems to me that nobody in a call centre has the time to sort anything out properly. A quick fix is fine, anything else and they ask you to write in.

If you can’t pinpoint for yourself exactly what has gone wrong here I suggest you write to HMRC, object to, or appeal against the P800 and ask for their breakdown of your employment income and tax deducted.

Then you may have something to work on.

antonic

Your right Jiimmo.

If you work in a contact centre you get 6 or 7 minutes to complete EACH call you take.

Completing a call means that you listen to the call and type up your notes, you are NOT to discuss anything else BUT the call - so if you spot a mistake elsewhere on the records you MUST NOT mention it.
Also if you take to long answering a call you can get disciplined !.

jimmo wrote: »

I’m afraid your figures don’t appear to stack up. 6190 +21744 + 10874 = 38808

The P800 shows 45746 so the difference between HMRC and you is 6938.

If the difference was 6190 your logic would have seemed to be sound and there have been quite a number of threads on here recently where income from 1 job has been double counted and HMRC have been pretty quick to sort those out, usually just on the strength of a phone call.

Perhaps it’s the nature of call centres nowadays but it seems to me that nobody in a call centre has the time to sort anything out properly. A quick fix is fine, anything else and they ask you to write in.

If you can’t pinpoint for yourself exactly what has gone wrong here I suggest you write to HMRC, object to, or appeal against the P800 and ask for their breakdown of your employment income and tax deducted.

Then you may have something to work on.

billybraggtastic

Thanks for the responses.

Section 8 was completed using the same figure in the earlier section.

I did not receive any further payments from Employer 2 - they went into receivership. I did receive 2 payments from the NI Fund (I didn't show this in the figures above - as I said a convoluted year!) which amounted to £418 pound but not the £700+ that Jimmo identified.

This made my total taxable income for the year £39226. I believe £6190 is attributable to the P45 error and HMRC claim I received £748 from the NI Fund (overstated by £330 by my reckoning).

John_Pierpoint

antonic wrote: »

If you work in a contact centre you get 6 or 7 minutes to complete EACH call you take.

Completing a call means that you listen to the call and type up your notes, you are NOT to discuss anything else BUT the call - so if you spot a mistake elsewhere on the records you MUST NOT mention it.
Also if you take to long answering a call you can get disciplined !.

Pathetic command and control system from the time of Henry Ford; it totally fails to measure how much could have been saved by a do-it-once-get-it-right-first-time system.

In fairness to the "front line operatives", the first step should be to simplify the tax system, where in reality it gets more complex every year.

Given the complexities caused by ever increasing international trade and the free movement of people across borders to follow the money and the ravenous demands for more tax from a stagnant (declining per head) economy, only a computer can keep up with the situation.

As far as I am concerned, writing 4 letters with no reply, sitting next to my phone for 24 hours trying to get through and then sitting waiting for 36 for a call back from someone who might understand the situation (the problem took less than 5 minutes to resolve eventually) is unacceptable.

This free forum must be saving the the country a fortune.

System

billybraggtastic wrote: »

Thanks for the responses.

Section 8 was completed using the same figure in the earlier section.

I did not receive any further payments from Employer 2 - they went into receivership. I did receive 2 payments from the NI Fund (I didn't show this in the figures above - as I said a convoluted year!) which amounted to £418 pound but not the £700+ that Jimmo identified.

This made my total taxable income for the year £39226. I believe £6190 is attributable to the P45 error and HMRC claim I received £748 from the NI Fund (overstated by £330 by my reckoning).

In which case jimmo's idea is probably best. Ask HMRC for a breakdown of their figures. This should help pin down the source of the problem.

There is no 'appeal' against a P800, as such. In the sense that the figures are either right or wrong. Ie it's not subjective. To fix things, first get to the bottom of which figure is wrong. Then send them the evidence to back this up.