Reclaiming Overpaid Income Tax/NI/Student Loan

weebit

Hi all,
(I hope this is the most appropriate forum for this?)

I work freelance and so each month my pay varies and subsequently my income tax, National Insurance, and Student Loan payments also vary. At the end of the year I usually end up paying more tax, NI and Student Loan than I should have. This usually occurs either when i start new job and it takes my employer a few weeks to impliment my correct tax code (I usually fill in a P46 form because my P45 from my previous job hasn't been issued yet so I sometimes start on an emergency tax code), and also at the end of my contract when I receive my unused holiday pay, so I get more deductions in that pay packet also.

Reclaiming my tax is simple, I've already sent off a letter to the tax office for this year, but can I reclaim overpaid NI payments and Student Loan payments? If so, how do I go about doing it and how many years worth can I claim back?

I've worked out that over the past 3 years, my total overpayments amount to over £500 and I'm keen to get this back!

I used to fill in a tax return every year, but in the past few years all my jobs were done on a PAYE basis, so I unregistered as Self-Employed.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

jem16

weebit wrote: »

Reclaiming my tax is simple, I've already sent off a letter to the tax office for this year, but can I reclaim overpaid NI payments and Student Loan payments? If so, how do I go about doing it and how many years worth can I claim back?

NI cannot be claimed back. It's paid from gross income and is due on what you pay each week/month.

Details for claiming overpaid student loan here;

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/students/overpay_student_loan_6_2.htm

McKneff

I don't understand, yo say you work freelance yet you get a wage packet and pay tax and ni.

Paying tax and NI on the pAYE system means you are employed.

weebit

McKneff wrote: »

I don't understand, yo say you work freelance yet you get a wage packet and pay tax and ni.

Paying tax and NI on the pAYE system means you are employed.

Freelance doesn't mean self-employed. I work on projects and when one project ends, I need to find another job. Some jobs last 6 months or more, but sometimes I get a contract for only a few days. Each one is paid on a PAYE basis, but they're all fixed-term contracts.

Thanks for the advice though. It's weird about the NI. You'd think it would be standardised with the tax and it's based on your annual income and not on what you happen to get in one particular week/month. For example, in December I left a job I has for 7 months where I was paid weekly. In my final pay packet, I received my unused holiday pay so in effect got just over 3 weeks pay but all my deductions were taken off as if that was what I earned in a week and it put me into the 40% tax bracket for that one week!

Due to this reason, and also due to a few weeks on emergency tax, I am due a tax refund of around £550 from last tax year!

John_Pierpoint

Once upon a time, the government used to be able to get away with claiming NI was indeed an insurance policy for those at work.
A stamp was stuck on your card for every week you worked.
Unsticking it was not an option.

chrisbur

Very interesting to see the old stamp card, when I started in payroll in about 1972 there were still stamp cards but thankfully we did not have to stick individual stamps on for all the 500 or so emplyees; we were able to do a paper return that showed the number of stamps each employee had paid for. Any idea when the health and pensions bit was dropped and it just became national insurance?